ROSEDALE.
"What an intrepid young brave you are, Dick!" Olympia cried, as the
artless narrative came to an end.
"What a cruel boy, to leave his family and--and--run into such dreadful
danger!" Merry expostulated.
"What a devoted boy, to risk his life and liberty for our poor Jack!"
Mrs. Sprague said, bending forward to stroke the tow-head. The carriage
passed down the same road that Jack had gone the day before, whistling
sarcasms at his keeper. At Harrison's Landing there was a delay of
several hours, and the impatient party wandered on the shores of the
majestic James--glittering, like a sylvan lake, in its rich border of
woodland. The sun was too hot to permit of the excursion Dick suggested,
and late in the afternoon the wheezy ferry carried them down the
lake-like stream. On every hand there were signs of peace--not a fort,
not a breastwork gave token that this was in a few months to be the
shambles of mighty armies, the anchorage of that new wonder, the iron
battle-ship; the scene of McClellan's miraculous victory at Malvern, of
Grant's slaughtering grapplings with rebellion at bay, of Butler's comic
joustings, and the last desperate onslaughts of Hancock's legions. The
air, tempered by the faint flavor of salt in the water, filled the
travelers with an intoxicating vigor, lent strength to their jaded
forces, which, while tense with expectation, could not wholly resist the
delicious aroma, the lovely outlines of primeval forest, the melody of
strange birds, startled along the shore by the wheezy puffing of the
ferry. There were cries of admiring delight as the carriage ran from the
long wooden pier into the dim arcade of sycamore and pine, through which
the road wound, all the way to Rosedale. Then they emerged into a
gentle, rolling, upland, where cultivated fields spread far into the
horizon, and in the distance a dense grove, which proved to be the park
about the house. The coming of the carriage was a signal to a swarm of
small black urchins to scramble, grinning and delighted, to the wide
lawn. There was no need to sound the great knocker; no need to explain,
when Rosalind, hurrying to the door, saw Olympia emerging from the
vehicle. They had not seen each other in four years, but they were in
each other's arms--laughing, sobbing--exclaiming:
"How did you know? When did you come?"
"Jack, Jack! Where is he? How is he?"
"Jack's able to eat," Rosa cried, darting down to embrace Mrs. Sprague,
and starting with a little cry of wonder as Aunt Merry exclaimed, timidly:
"We're all here. You've captured the best part of Acredale, though you
haven't got Washington yet."
"Why, how delightful! We shall think it is Acredale," Rosa cried,
welcoming the blushing lady. "And--I should say, if he were not so much
like--like 'we uns,' that this was my old friend, the naughty Richard,"
she said, welcoming the blushing youth cordially. (Dick avowed
afterward, in confidence to Jack, that she would have kissed him if he
hadn't held back, remembering his unkempt condition.) Mamma and Olympia
were shown up to the door of Jack's room, where Rosalind very discreetly
left them, to introduce the other guests to Mrs. Atterbury, attracted to
the place by the unwonted sounds. When presently the visitors were shown
into Vincent's room, Jack called out to them to come and see valor
conquered by love; and, when they entered, mamma was brushing her eyes
furtively, while she still held Jack's unwounded hand under the
counterpane. Master Dick excited the maternal alarm by throwing himself
rapturously on the wounded hero and giving him the kiss he had denied
Rosalind. Indeed, he showered kisses on the abashed hero, whose eyes
were suspiciously sparkling at the evidence of the boy's delight. He
established himself in Jack's room, and no urging, prayer, or reproof
could induce him to quit his hero's sight.
"I lost him once," he said, doggedly, "and I'm not going to lose him
again. Where he goes, I'm going; where he stays, I'll stay--sha'n't
I, Jack?"
"You shall, indeed, my dauntless Orestes; you shall share my fortunes,
whatever they be."
He insisted on a cot in the room, and there, during the convalescence of
his idol, he persisted in sleeping--ruling all who had to do with the
invalid in his own capricious humor, hardly excepting Mrs. Sprague, whom
he tolerated with some impatience. Letters were dispatched northward to
relieve the anxiety of Pliny and Phemie, as well as the Marshes. But it
hung heavily on Jack's heart that no trace of Barney had been found.
Advertisements were sent to the Richmond papers, and he waited in
restless impatience for some sign of the kind lad's well-being.
"Well, Jack, this isn't much like the pomp and circumstance of glorious
war," Olympia cried, the next morning, coming in from an excursion about
the "plantation," as she insisted on calling the estate, attended by
Merry, Rosa, and Dick. "I never saw such foliage! The roses are as large
as sunflowers, and there are whole fields of them!"
"Yes; I believe the Atterburys make merchandise of them."
"But who buys them about here? They seem to grow wild--as fine in form
and color as our hot-house varieties. Surely they are not bought by the
colored people, and there seems to be no one else--no other
inhabitants, I mean."
"Oh, no; they are shipped North in the season for them; but I don't
think the family has paid much attention to that branch of the business
of late years. Their revenues come from tobacco and cotton. Their
cotton-fields are in South Carolina and along the Atlantic coast."
"And are these colored people all slaves?" Her voice sank to a whisper,
for Vincent's door was ajar.
"Yes, every man jack of them. Did you ever see such merry rogues? They
laugh and sing half the night, and sing and work half the day."
"They don't seem unhappy, that's a fact," Olympia said, reflectively,
"but I should think ownership in flesh and blood would harden people;
and yet the Atterburys are very kind and gentle. I saw tears in Mrs.
Atterbury's eyes, yesterday, when mamma was sitting here with you."
"Yes," Jack said, unconsciously, "women enjoy crying--"
"You insufferable braggart, how dare you talk like that? Pray, what do
you know about women's likes and dislikes?"
"Oh, I beg pardon, Polly; I'm sure I didn't mean anything--I was taking
the minor for the major. All women like babies; babies pass most of
their time crying; therefore women like crying."
"Well, if that is the sum of your college training, it is a good thing
the war came--"
"What about the war? No treason in Rosedale, remember!" Vincent shouted
from the next room. "You pledged me that when you talked war you would
talk in open assembly." The voice neared the open doorway as he spoke.
The servant had moved the invalid's cot, where Vincent could look in
on Jack.
"There was really no war talk, Vint, except such war as women always
raise, contention--"
"I object, Jack, to your generalization," Olympia retorted. "It is a
habit of boyishness and immaturity.--He said a moment ago" (she turned
to Vincent) "that women loved crying, and then sneaked out by a very
shallow evasion."
"I'll leave it to Vint: All women love babies; babies do nothing but
cry; therefore, women love crying; there couldn't be a syllogism more
irrefutable."
"Unless it be that all women love liars," Vincent ventured, jocosely.
"How do you prove that?"
"All men are liars; women love men; therefore--"
"Oh, pshaw! you have to assume in that premise. I don't in mine. It is
notorious that women love babies, while you have only the spiteful
saying of a very uncertain old prophet for your major--"
"Whose major?" Rosa asked, appearing suddenly. "I'll have you to know,
sir, that this major is mamma's, and no one else can have, hold, or make
eyes at him."
"It was the major in logic we were making free with," Jack mumbled,
laughing. "I hope logic isn't a heresy in your new Confederacy, as
religion was in the French Constitution of '93?"
Rosa looked at Olympia, a little perplexed, and, seating herself on the
cot with Vincent, where she could caress him furtively, said, with
piquant deliberation:
"I don't know about logic, but we've got everything needed to make us
happy in the Montgomery Constitution."
"Have you read it?" Jack asked, innocently.
"How insulting! Of course I have. I read it the very first thing when it
appeared in the newspapers."
"Catch our Northern women doing that!" Jack interjected, loftily. "There
is my learned sister, she doesn't know the Constitution from Plato's
Dialogues."
"Indeed, I do not; nor do I know Plato's Dialogues," Olympia returned,
quite at ease in this state of ignorance.
"Wherein does the Montgomery Constitution differ from the old one?" Jack
asked, looking at Vincent.
"I'm blessed if I know. I've read neither. I did read the Declaration of
Independence once at a Fourth-of-July barbecue. I always thought that
was the Constitution. Indeed, every fellow about here does! You know in
the South the women do all the thinking for the men. Rosa keeps my
political conscience."
"Well, then, Lord High Chancellor, tell us the vital articles in the
Montgomery document that have inspired you to arm Mars for the conflict,
plunge millions into strife and thousands into hades, as Socrates would
have said, employing his method?" Jack continued derisively.
"Our Constitution assures us the eternal right to own our own property."
"Slaves?"
"Yes."
"No one denied you that right, so far as the law went, under the old; it
was only the justice, the humanity, that was questioned. The right would
have endured a hundred years, perhaps forever, if you had kept still--"
"Come, Jack, I won't listen to politics," Olympia cried, with a warning
look.
"No, the time for talk is past; it is battle, and God defend the right!"
Rosa said, solemnly.
"And you may be sure he will," Jack added, softly, as though to himself.
"But we've got far away from the crying and the babies," Vincent began,
when Jack interrupted, fervently:
"Thank Heaven!"
"You monster!" the two girls cried in a breath.
"No, I can't conceive a sillier paradox than 'A babe in the house is a
well-spring of joy.' A woman must have written it first. Now, my idea of
perfect happiness for a house is to have two wounded warriors like
Vincent and me, tractable, amiable, always ready to join in rational
conversation and make love if necessary, providing we're encouraged."
"Really, Olympia, your Northern men are not what I fancied," Rosa cried,
with a laugh.
"What did you fancy them?"
"Oh, ever so different, from this--this saucy fellow--modest, timid,
shy; needing ever so much encouragement to--to--"
"Claim their due?" Jack added, slyly.
"Well, there is one that doesn't require much encouragement to claim
everything that comes in his way," Rosa retorts, and Olympia adds:
"And to spare my feelings you won't name him now."
"Exactly," said Rosa.
"How touching!" exclaimed Vincent.
"I left all my blood to enrich your soil, or I'd blush," replied Jack.
"Oh, no; it won't enrich the soil; it will bring out a crop of Johnny
Jump-ups, a weed that we don't relish in the South," retorted Rosa.
"Ah, Jack, you're hit there!--Rosa, I'm proud of you. This odious Yankee
needs combing down; he ran over us so long at college that he is
conceited in his own impudence," and Vincent exploded in shouts
of laughter.
"I fear you're not a botanist, Miss Rosa. It's 'Jack in the pulpit' that
will spring from Northern blood, and they'll preach such truths that the
very herbage will bring the lesson of liberty and toleration to you."
"What is this very serious discussion, my children?" Mrs. Atterbury
said, beaming sweetly upon the group. "I couldn't imagine what had
started Vincent in such boisterous laughter; and now, that I come, Mr.
Jack is as serious as we were at school when Madame Clarice told us of
our sins."
"Jack was telling his, mamma, and that is still more serious than to
hear one's own," Vincent said, grinning at the moralist.
"But, to be serious a moment, I have written to my old friend General
Robert Lee, of Arlington, about Miss Perley. I know that he will grant
her permission to take Richard home with her, and the question now is
whether it is safe to let them go together alone?" Mrs. Atterbury
addressed the question to Olympia, making no account of Jack.
"Oh, let us leave the decision until you get General Lee's answer. If
they get the message in Acredale that Dick is safe and sound, I don't
see why they need go back before we do. I shall be able to travel in a
few weeks. If the roads were not so rickety I wouldn't be afraid to set
out now," Jack answered.
"Impossible! You can't leave for a month yet, if then," Vincent
proclaimed, authoritatively. "I know what gunshot wounds are: you think
they are healed, and begin fooling about, when you find yourself laid up
worse than ever. There's no hurry. The campaign can't begin before
October. I'm as anxious to be back as you are, but I don't mean to stir
before October. Perhaps you think it will be dull here? Just wait until
you are strong enough to knock about a bit; we shall have royal rides.
We'll go to Williamsburg and see the oldest college in the country.
We'll go down the James, and you shall see some of the richest lands in
the world. We'll get a lot of fellows out from Richmond and have our
regular barbecue in September. We wind up the season here every year
with a grand dance, and Olympia shall lead the Queen Anne minuet with
mamma's kinsman, General Lee, who is the President's chief of staff."
"This doesn't sound much like soldiering," Jack said, dreamily.
"No. When in the field, let us fight; when at home, let us be merry."
"A very proper sentiment, young men. We want you to be very merry, for
you must remember the time comes when we can't be anything but sad--when
you are away and the night of doubt settles upon our weak women's
hearts." It was Mrs. Atterbury who spoke, and the sentence seemed to
bring silence upon the group.
Meanwhile, all the inquiries set on foot through the agency of the
Atterburys failed to bring any tidings of Barney Moore. It suddenly
occurred to Jack that the poor fellow was masquerading as a rebel in the
bosom of some eager patriot like Mrs. Raines and he reluctantly
consented to let Dick go to Richmond to investigate. Perhaps Mrs. Raines
might know where the wounded men were taken that had come with him. Some
of the stragglers could at least be found. The advertisement asking
information concerning a wounded man arriving in Richmond with himself
was kept in all the journals. But Merry wouldn't consent to let Dick go
on the dangerous quest without her. She would never dare face her
sisters if any mishap came to the lad, and though Vincent put him under
the care of an experienced overseer, and ordered the town-house to be
opened for his entertainment, the timorous aunt was immovable.
"You must go and call on the President, Miss Merry. He receives
Thursdays at the State House. Then you'll see a really great man in
authority, not the backwoods clowns that have brought this country into
ridicule--such a man as Virginia used to give the people for President,"
Rosa said in the tone a lady of Louis XVIII's court might have used to
an adherent of the Bonapartes.
"Ah, Rosa, we saw a gentle, tender-hearted man in Washington--the very
ideal of a people's father. No one else can ever be President to me
while he lives," Olympia said, seriously.
"Lincoln?" Rosa asked, a little disdainfully.
"Yes, Abraham Lincoln. We have all misunderstood him. Oh if you could
have seen him as I saw him--so patient, so considerate: the sorrows of
the nation in his heart and its burdens on his shoulders; but confident,
calm, serene, with the benignant humility of a man sent by God," Olympia
added almost reverently. "It was he who came to our aid and ordered the
rules to be broken that our mother might seek Jack."
Rosa was about to retort, but a warning glance from Vincent checked her,
and she said nothing.
"I say, Dick, don't try to capture Jeff Davis or blow up the Confederate
Congress, or any other of the casual master strokes that may enter your
wild head. Remember that we have given double hostages to the enemy. We
have accepted their hospitality, and we have made ourselves their
guests," Jack said, half seriously, as the young Hotspur wrung his hand
in a tearful embrace.
"Above all, remember, Mr. Yankee, that you are in a certain sense a
civilian now; you must not compromise us by free speech in Richmond,"
Rosa added.
"Ah, I know very well there's none of that in the South: you folks
object to free speech; they killed poor old Brown for it; that's what
you made war for, to silence free speech," Dick cried hotly, while Merry
pinched his arm in terror.
Dick began his campaign in the morning with longheaded address. He
visited the prison under ample powers from General Lee--procured though
Vincent's mediation. There were a score of the Caribees in Castle
Winder, and to these the boy came as a good fairy in the tale. For he
distributed money, tobacco, and other things, which enabled the
unfortunates to beguile the tedious hours of confinement. The prisoners
were crowded like cattle in the immense warehouse in squads of a hundred
or more. They had blankets to stretch on the floor for beds, a general
basin to wash in, and for some time amused themselves watching through
the barred windows the crowds outside that flocked to the place to see
the Yankees, and, when not checked by the guards, to revile and
taunt them.
Dick was enraged to see how contentedly the men bore the irksome
confinement, the meager food, and harsh peremptoriness of the beardless
boys set over them as guards. Most of the prisoners passed the time in
cards, playing for buttons, trinkets, or what not that formed their
scanty possessions. Dick learned that all the commissioned officers of
the company with Wesley Boone had been wounded or killed in the charge
near the stone bridge. Wesley had been with the prisoners at first. He
had been struck on the head, and was in a raging fever when his father
and sister came to the prison to take him away. No one could tell where
he was now, but Dick knew that he must be in the city, since there were
no exchanges, the Confederates allowing no one to leave the lines except
women with the dead, or those who came from the North on
special permits.
Then he visited the provost headquarters, and was shown the complete
list of names recorded in the books there; but Barney's was not among
them. At the Spottswood Hotel, the day after his coming, he met Elisha
Boone, haggard, depressed, almost despairing. Dick had no love for the
hard-headed plutocrat, but he couldn't resist making himself known.
"How d'ye do, Mr. Boone? I hope Wesley is coming on well, sir."
Boone brought his wandering eyes down to the stripling in dull
amazement.
"Why, where on earth do you come from? How is it you are free and
allowed in the streets?"
"Oh, I am a privileged person, sir. I am looking up Company K. You
haven't heard anything of young Moore, Barney, who lives on the Callao
road south of Acredale?"
"No, my mind has been taken up with my son"; his voice grew softer. "He
is in a very bad way, and the worst is there is no decent doctor to be
got here for love or money; all the capable ones are in the army, and
those that are here refuse to take any interest in a Yankee."
The father's grief and the unhappy situation of his whilom enemy touched
the lad; forgetting Jack's and Vincent's warning, Dick said,
impulsively:
"Oh, I can get him a good doctor. We have friends here." He knew, the
moment he had spoken the words, that he had been imprudent--how
imprudent the sudden, suspicious gleam in Boone's eye at once
admonished him.
"Friends here? Union men have no friends here. There are men here with,
whom I have done business for years, men that owe prosperity to me, but
when I called on them they almost insulted me. If you have friends, you
must have sympathies that they appreciate."
Dick knew what this meant. To be a Democrat had been, in Acredale, to be
charged with secret leanings to rebellion. He restrained his wrath
manfully, and said, simply:
"An old college friend of Jack's has been very kind to us."
"Us? I take it you mean the Spragues. They are stopping with Jeff Davis,
I suppose? It's the least he could do for allies so steadfast."
"You shouldn't talk that way, sir. Every man in the Caribees, except old
Oswald's gang, is a Democrat, but they are for the country
before party."
"Yes, yes, it may be so--but, the North don't think that way. Well, I'm
going to Washington to see if I can't get my boy out of this infernal
place, where a man can't even get shaved decently."
"And Miss Kate, Mr. Boone, where is she?"
"She is nursing Wesley, poor girl. She is having a harder trial than any
of us; for these devilish women fairly push into the sick-room to abuse
the North and berate the soldiers that fought at Manassas."
"I should like to call on Wesley--if you don't mind," Dick said,
hesitatingly.
"I shall be only too glad; and I'll tell you what it is, Richard, if
you'll make use of your friends here, to get Kate and Wesley some
comforts, some consideration, I'll make it worth your while. I'll see
that you do not have to wait long for a commission, and I'll pay you any
reasonable sum so soon as you get back North."
Dick restrained his anger under this insulting blow, perceiving, even in
the hotness of his wrath, that the other was unconscious of the double
ignominy implied in dealing with soldiers' rewards as personal bribes,
and proffering money for common brotherly offices. It was only when Jack
commended his astuteness, afterward, that Dick realized the adroitness
of his own diplomacy.
"Thank you, Mr. Boone. I shouldn't care for promotion that I didn't win
in war; and, as for money, I shall have enough when I need it. But any
man in the Caribees shall have my help. Under the flag every man is
a friend."
"True. Yes; you are quite right. Kate will be very glad to see you."
They walked along, neither disposed to talk after this narrow shave from
a quarrel. Boone led the way to the northern outskirts of the city,
until they reached a dull-brown frame building, back some distance from
the street. A colored woman, with a flaming turban on her head, opened
the door as she saw them coming up the trim walk lined with shells and
gay with poppies, bergamot, asters, and heliotrope.
"This woman is a slave. She belongs to the proprietor of the hotel who
refused to receive Wesley. It was a great concession to let him come
here, they told me. But the poor boy might as well be in a Michigan
logging camp, for all the care he can get. But I'm mighty glad I met
you. I know you can help Kate while I am gone. I hated to leave her, but
I can do nothing here, and unless Wesley is removed he will never leave
this cussed town alive. I sha'n't be gone more than ten days."
Kate had been called by the turbaned mistress, and came into the room
with a little shriek of pleasure.
"O, Richard, what a delightful surprise! Have you seen your aunt? Ah! I
am so glad; she must be so relieved! And Mr. Sprague--have they
found him?"
Dick retailed as much of the story as he thought safe, but he had to say
that the Spragues were all with the Atterburys in the country.
"How providential! Ah, if our poor Wesley could find some such friends!
He is very low. He recognizes no one. Unless papa can get leave to take
him North--I am afraid of the worst. Indeed, I doubt whether he could
stand so long a journey. You must stay the day with us. I am so lonely,
and I dread being more lonely still when papa leaves this evening."
Dick remained until late in the afternoon, sending word to Merry, who
came promptly to the aid of the afflicted. The next day Dick left his
aunt at the cottage with Kate, and warning them that he should be gone
all day, and perhaps not see them until the next morning, he set off for
Rosedale, where he told Jack Kate's plight. Vincent heard the story,
too, and when it was ended he said, decisively:
"Jack, we must send for them. It would never do to have the story told
in Acredale that you had found friends in the South--because you are a
Democrat, and Boone was thrust into negro quarters because he is an
abolitionist."
It was the very thought on Jack's mind, and straightway the carriage was
made ready, with ample pillows and what not. Dick set out in great
state, filled with the importance of his mission and the glory of Jack's
cordial praises. He was to stop on the way through town and carry the
Atterbury's family physician to direct the removal. When he appeared
before Kate, with Mrs. Atterbury's commands that she and her brother
should make Rosedale their home until the invalid could be removed
North, the poor girl broke down in the sudden sense of relief--the
certainty of salvation to the slowly dying brother. The physician spent
many hours redressing the wounds. Gangrene had begun to eat away the
flesh of the head above the temple, and poor Wesley was unrecognizable.
He was quite unconscious of the burning bromine and the clipping of
flesh that the skillful hand of the practitioner carried on. When the
little group started on the long journey, the invalid looked more like
himself than he had since Kate found him. The drive lasted many hours.
Wesley was stretched in an ambulance, Kate sitting on the seat with the
driver, the physician and Dick following in the carriage. Merry went
back to the city house, where her nephew was to return as soon as Wesley
had been delivered at Rosedale. Her charge placed in the hands of the
kind hostess, Mrs. Atterbury, Kate broke down. She had borne up while
her head and heart alone stood between her brother and death; but now,
relieved of the strain, she fell into an alarming fever. A Williamsburg
veteran, who had practiced in that ancient college town, since the early
days of the century, took the Richmond surgeon's place, and the gay
summer house became, for the time, a hospital.
Meanwhile the rebel provost-marshal had simplified Dick's task a good
deal. An order was issued that all houses where wounded or ailing men
were lying should signalize the fact by a yellow flag or ribbon,
attached to the front in a conspicuous place. Thus directed, Dick walked
street after street, asking to see the wounded; and the fourth day,
coming to a residence, rather handsomer than the others on the street,
not two blocks from Mrs. Raines, Jack's Samaritan, he found a wasted
figure, with bandaged head and unmeaning eyes, that he recognized
as Barney.
"We haven't been able to get any clew as to his name or regiment. The
guards at the station said he belonged to the Twelfth Virginia, but none
of the members of that body in the city recognize him. You know him?"
"Yes. He is of my regiment," Dick said, neglecting to mention the
regiment. "I will send word to his friends at once and have
him removed."
"Oh, we are proud and happy to have him here. Our only anxiety was lest
he should die and his family remain in ignorance. But, now that you
identify him, we hope that we may be permitted to keep him until his
recovery."
It was a stately matron who spoke with such a manner, as Dick thought,
must be the mark of nobility in other lands. He learned, with surprise,
that the Atterbury physician was ministering to Barney, though there was
nothing strange in that, since the doctor was the favorite practitioner
of the well-to-do in the city. That night he wrote to Jack, asking
instructions, and the next day received a note, written by Olympia,
advising that Barney be left with his present hosts until he recovered
consciousness; that by that time Vincent would be able to come up to
town and explain matters to the deluded family. The better to carry out
this plan, Dick was bidden to return to Rosedale, and thus, six weeks
after the battle and dispersion, all our Acredale personages, by the
strange chances of war, were assembled within sight of the rebel
capital, and, though in the hands of friends, as absolutely cut off from
their home and duties as if they had been captured in a combat with
the Indians.