"HE EITHER FEARS HIS FATE TOO MUCH."
When Vincent visited the stables on the morning of that
eagerly-looked-for Thursday, he found three of the horses clammy with
perspiration and giving every sign of having been ridden! The awkward
and evasive answers of the stablemen would not have been enough for any
other than a man preoccupied by love. When Rosa went to the kitchen, if
her head had not been taken up with the love in her heart, she must
certainly have remarked that the stores of food prepared for the
household were curiously diminished and the kitchen girls unwontedly
reserved. Indeed, in any other condition than that in which the family
now found themselves, they must have remarked a singular change in the
black brigade in kitchen and garden. But, preocupied each with a
different interest, as well as the preparation for the President's
_fête_, the Atterburys remarked nothing sinister in the distracted
conduct of their servants, and had only a vague feeling that the great
event had in some sort paralyzed their wonted noisy activities and
repressed their usual chatter. Kate's uneasiness and restless vagaries,
her disjointed talk and half-guilty evasions, would have been remarked
by her prepossessed hosts; while Wesley's shifting and moody silence
would have warned his comrades that he was suffering the pangs of an
evil done or meditated. Precursive signs like these--and much more,
which need not be dwelt on--the kind hosts of Rosedale made no note of.
But when Vincent opened the mail-bag--brought by an orderly from
Williamsburg every morning, the first surprise and shock of the day was
felt--though in varying degrees by all the diverse inmates of the house.
"Hah! glory to the Lord of hosts!" the exultant reader cried, as he
passed to his mother a large official envelope at the breakfast-table.
"I'm ordered to the field." he cried, as Jack looked inquiringly; "I'm
to set out to-night and report for duty with General Johnston to-morrow
at Manassas. No more loitering in my lady's bower; Jack, my boy, the
carpet will be clear for your knightly pranks after to-night."
"If it were Aladdin's magic rug, I should caper nimbly enough. I warrant
you."
"What would you wish--if it were under your feet, with its slaves at
your command?"
"I should whisk you all off--North--instanter."
"Ingrate!--plunge us into the chilly blasts of the North, in return for
our glorious Southern sun? Fie, Jack! I'm surprised at such selfish
ingratitude. We expected better things of our prisoners," Mrs. Atterbury
murmured, and affected a reproving frown at the culprit, as she handed
her son back the order, with a stilled sigh.
"The sun of the South is not the sun of York to us, you know; all the
clouds that lower on our house are doubly darkened by this Southern sun;
even the warmth of Rosedale hearts can not make up for our eclipsed
Northern star," Jack said, sadly, with a wistful look at the rival
warrior reading with sparkling eyes the instructions accompanying the
order to march.
"Since Vincent is going so far northward, I think it will be a good time
for us to go home," Mrs. Sprague began, tentatively.
"Oh--no--no! Oh, we could never think of such a thing," Rosa
cried--"could we, mamma?"
"Why should you go?" Mrs. Atterbury asked. "Until Jack is exchanged,
you've certainly no duty in the North so important as watching over this
headstrong fellow. We can't think of your going--unless you are weary
of us."
"O Mrs. Atterbury, pray don't put it in that way! You know better. Our
visit here has been perfect. But you can understand my anxiety to be at
home; to be where I can aid my son's release. I have been anxious for
some time to broach the subject, but I saw that our going would be a
trouble to you; now, since fortune offers this chance, we must seize
it--that is, those of us who feel it a duty to go"; and she looked
meaningly at Merry and her daughter.
"Nonsense! You are hostages for Vincent, in case he is captured, as long
as you are here; I can't let you go--under the laws of war--I can not.
Can I, Vincent?"
Vincent looked at Jack solemnly, but made no answer.
"Mamma is quite right. While you are with us no harm can come to
Vincent; for, if he should be taken prisoner, we can threaten the Yankee
Government to put you to torture unless he is well treated," Rosa
interrupted, reassuringly.
"We should be far more aid and comfort to Vincent if we were in the
North than we could be here. If he were taken prisoner and wounded, we
could return him the kindness we have received here. In any event, we
could lessen the hardships of prison life."
"Oh, you would have to minister to a mind diseased, if such a fate
should befall me!" Vincent cried, sentimentally; with a glance into
Olympia's eyes, which met his at the moment. Both blushed; and Olympia,
to relieve the embarrassment, said, decisively:
"Mamma is right. Jack must have his family on the ground, to watch over
his interests. I am sure there is some underhand work responsible for
this long delay in his case, for I saw by _The Whig_, last week, that
exchanges of prisoners had been made; I think that--" But, suddenly
remembering the presence of Kate and Wesley, she did not finish the
thought, which implied a belief in the intervention of the elder
Boone--to Jack's detriment. In the end--when the two mothers talked the
matter over--Mrs. Sprague carried the point. She convinced Mrs.
Atterbury that there was danger to Jack in a longer stay of his family
in the Confederate lines. Vague reports had already reached them from
Acredale of the suspicious hostility in which the Democrats were held
after Bull Run. The Northern papers, which came through the lines quite
regularly, left no doubt that Democratic leanings were universally
interpreted in the North as evidences of rebel sympathy, if not
partisanship. Such a charge, as things stood, would be fatal to Jack;
and the mother's duty was plain. She had friends in Washington, once
powerful, who could stand between her son and calumny--perhaps more
serious danger--when she was present in person to explain his conduct.
If she could not at once secure his exchange, she could save him from
compromise in the present inflammable and capricious state of the public
mind. Understanding this, and the enmity of Boone, Mrs. Atterbury not
only made no further objection, but acknowledged the urgent necessity of
the mother's presence in the North. The idle life of Rosedale had grown
unbearably irksome to Merry, too.
"I feel as if I were a rebel," she confided to Mrs. Sprague in the
evening talks, when the piano sounded and the young people were making
the hours pass in gayety. "It's a sin for us to laugh and be contented
here, when our friends are bearing the burdens of war. I shall be
ashamed to show my face in Acredale. Oh, I wish I could carry a musket!"
"You might carry a canteen, my dear. I believe the regiments take out
_vivandières_--there would be an outlet for your warlike emotions," Mrs.
Sprague said, with the purpose of cheering the unhappy spinster.
"Ah, no; I must not give encouragement to that dreadful Richard. But we
shall go now, thank Heaven, and it will comfort my sisters to have the
boy back on Northern soil, even if he persists in being a soldier."
She had a long talk with Jack on the subject. That tempest-tossed knight
convinced her that it would only incite the boy to more unruliness to
persist in his quitting the army, or to urge him northward now, before
an exchange was properly arranged. Indeed, he was a prisoner--taken in
battle--though his name did not appear on the lists. So Vincent's sudden
going was welcomed as a stroke of good fortune. The Atterburys,
understanding the natural feelings of the family, made only perfunctory
opposition. Olympia and Kate were to remain until their brothers' fates
were decided. Vincent, who had been for weeks wildly impatient to return
to the field, was divided in mind now--by joy and despair. He had put
off and put off a last appeal to Olympia. He had not had an opportunity,
or rather had too much opportunity--and had, from day to day, deferred
the longed-for yet dreaded decision. When ready to speak, prudence
whispered that it would be better to leave the question open until it
should come up of itself. She would learn every day to know him better
in his own home, where all the artificialities of life are stripped from
a man, by the concurrent abrasions of family love and domestic
_devoirs_. She would see that, however unworthy of her love he might
have seemed in the old boyish days at Acredale, now he could be a man
when manliness was demanded; that he could be patient, reticent, humble
in the trials her caprice or coquetry put upon him. She had, it seemed
to him, deepened and broadened the current of his love during these
blissful weeks of waiting. Her very reserve, under the new conditions
surrounding her, had made more luminous the beauty of her heart and
mind. She was no longer the airy, capricious Olympia of his college
days. The pensive gravity of misfortune and premature responsibility had
ennobled and made more tangible the traits that had won him in her
Northern home. She had not avoided him during these weeks of purifying
probation, as he feared she would. Of late--Jack's state being
secure--she had revived much of the old vivacity, and deepened the
thrall that held him.
But now the merry-making season which had opened before them was at an
end. The madrigals that welled up in his soft heart must sing themselves
in the silence of the night, in the camp yonder, with no ears to
comprehend, no heart to melt to them. He should probably not get a
chance to see her again during the conflict. How long? Perhaps a
year--for it would take two campaigns, as the rebel leaders reckoned, to
convince the North that the Confederacy was unconquerable! And what
might not happen during those momentous months? Perhaps Jack's
death?--and then they would be divided as by fire--or, if the conflict
resulted victoriously for the South, as he knew it must, he foresaw that
the soldier of the conquering army would not be received as a wooer in
the family of the defeated. He knew her so well! She would, in the very
pride of outraged patriotism, give her love to one of the defeated,
rather than add to the triumphs of the hated South. She had strong
convictions on the war. She hated slavery, and she could not be made to
see that the South was warring for liberty, not to sustain slavery.
These thoughts ran through Vincent's troubled mind as his mother
directed the preparations for the _fête_ of the President.
Kate, Jack, and Dick were pressed into the service of decorating the
apartments. Olympia left the room with her mother to advise and assist
in making ready for the journey North; and Vincent, aiding his mother
with a sadly divided mind, kept furtive watch on the hallway. She held
him hours in suspense, he thought, almost wrathfully, of deliberate
purpose; for she must have read in his eyes that he wanted to talk with
her. The artless Dick finally gave him a chance.
"I say, Vint, get Polly to show you the roses needed for the tables;
I'll be with you by-and-by to cut the ferns. Do you think you could make
yourself of that much use? You're not worth a straw here"
"Send for Miss Polly and I'll do my best," Vincent said, with a gulp, to
conceal his joy. She appeared presently; and, as they were passing out
of the door, Rosa cried, imperiously:
"Oh, yes, Vint, we need ever so much honeysuckle; you know where it
hangs thickest--in the Owl's Glen. Olympia will like to see that--the
haunt of her favorite bird"; and the busy little maid laughed cheerily,
like a disordered goddess, intoxicated by the exhaling odors of the
floral chaos.
"_En route_ for Roumelia, then," Vincent cried in military cadence, as
the florists set out. Roumelia was the name Jack had given the
rose-lands near the stream, in fanciful allusion to the Turkish province
of flowers. Halting at the gardener's cottage, Vincent procured an
immense pair of shears, like a double rapier in size, and, bidding the
man follow to gather the blossoms, he pushed into the blooming vineyard.
"With such an instrument I should say it was the golden fleece you were
after," Olympia cried, as he reached her side, "though I believe Jason
didn't do the shearing."
"No, the powers of air worked for him, and he found his quest ready to
his hand."
"I'm sure the powers of air have not denied you; look at those radiant
ranks of blossoms bending to be gathered."
"Ah, yes, beauty stoops sometimes to welcome the trembling hand of the
suitor."
"Your hand is rather unsteady--infirm of purpose; give me the blades."
She took them laughingly, and snipped the green stems rapidly and
dexterously.
"Yes, I believe men are infirm in moral purposes, as compared to women.
It is only in the brutalities of life that men are decisive."
"Do you mean that women approach the trials of life less thinkingly and
act less rationally than men?"
"Yes and no. The daring too much is always before a man; the daring too
little is, I think, the only trouble a woman has."
"Oh, that is a large question, involving too much mental strain in a
garden of roses, where the senses sleep and one is content with mere
breath and the faintest motion."
"There are enough roses; now we will go for the wild smilax and
honeysuckle; perhaps the cool air of the pools will restore your mental
activities."
They left the dismembered roses scattered in fragrant heaps on the
shaded path and walked slowly toward the dense hedge.
"What a perfect fortress this green wall makes of the gardens!" Olympia
said, glancing around the great square, where the solid green wall could
be seen running up much higher than their heads.
"Yes, as I said the other day, it would take hard work for an invading
force to get at the house unless traitors within gave up the gates. This
one," he added, unlocking a massive oak door, crossed with thick planks
and studded with iron bolts, "alone admits from the creek and swamp. It
is locked all the time; no one has the key except the gardener, who
delivers it to mamma every night."
"A feudal demesne; it takes one back to the so-called days of chivalry."
"Why do you say 'so-called'? To me they are the delight of the
past--when men went to battle for the smile of the women they loved,
when knights rode the world over in search of adventure, and my lady, in
her donjon, listened with pleasure to the lover's roundelay. Ah, it was
a perfect life, an enchanting time. We are living in a coarse, brutal
age; chivalry was the creed of civilization, the knights the priesthood
of the higher life."
"There's the Southerner through and through in that sentimentality. To
me chivalry means all that is narrow, cruel, and rapacious in man. The
philandering knights were sensual boobies, the simpering dames soulless
wantons. Life meant simply the rule of the strong, the slaughter of the
weak. Servitude was its law and robbery its methods. Have you ever
traveled in out-of-the-way places in Germany, Austria, or Italy?"
"No, I've never been abroad."
"You would know better what I mean if you had seen the monstrous relics
of the age you admire. The few ruled the many; the knights were simply a
brotherhood of blood and rapine; men were slaves, women were worse. The
bravest were as unlettered as your body-servant, the most beautiful
dames as termagant as Penelope the cook. At the table men and women ate
from a common dish, without forks or spoons. Men guzzled gallons of
unfermented wine. A bath was unknown. Cleanliness was as unpracticed as
Islamism in New York. Ugh! anything but chivalry for me."
"But surely the great lords were not what you represent. They were
gentle born, gentle bred. They could not be robbers; they lived from
great estates."
"They were the 'Knights of St. Nicholas,' which, in the slang of the
middle ages, meant what they call in the West road agents; indeed, plain
highwaymen they were called in England in Bacon's day."
Vincent bent over discomfited, and held the little shallop until Olympia
was seated, and then pushed off into the murky stream.
"Do you see those streamers of loveliness waving welcome to you, fair
damsel--Nature knows its kind?"
"That's one word for me and one for yourself," she cried, seizing the
dainty pink sprays that now trailed over her head and shoulders as the
boat glided along the fringe of hushes supporting the clinging vines.
"Oh, no, Olympia; I can't speak even one word for myself. I have been
trembling to do it this six weeks, but your eye had none of the
invitation these starry blossoms offer us. I am going to say now,
Olympia, what I have to say--for after to-day there will be no chance;
what has been on my mind you have long known. You know that I love you;
how much I love you, how impossible it is to think of life without you,
I dare not venture to say to you, for you distrust our Southern
exaggeration. But I do love you; ah, my God! all the world else--my
mother, my sister, my duty seem nothing compared to the one passionate
hope in my breast. Do you believe me, Olympia--do you doubt me?"
"Far from it, Vincent--dear Vincent--no--no--sit where you are and
listen to me--" She was deeply moved, and the lover in his heart cursed
the luckless veils of blossom that she apparently, without design, drew
before her face. "I do believe all you say; I knew it before you said
it. But you remember we went over this very same ground before. Since
then, it is true, you have been the means of saving us much misery; how
much I hardly dare think of when I look back to that dreadful day, when
mamma lay in the fever of coming disease and the hopelessness of
despair. All I can say, dear, dear Vincent, is what I said before. Wait
until thine and mine are no longer at war. Wait until one flag
covers us--"
"But that can never be!"
"Wait! I have faith that it will be!"
"If one flag should cover us--my flag--would you--would you--?"
"Ah, Vincent! don't ask me; don't force me to say something thing that
will make you unhappy, since I don't know my own mind well enough yet to
answer as you wish me to answer--"
"But you can tell me now whether you love me, or, at least, whether
there is any one you love more?"
"I don't think I love you. I know, however, that I think no more of any
one else than I think of you; pray, let that suffice."
"But how cruel that is, Olympia! It is as much, as to say that you won't
wait and see whether you may meet some one that you can be surer of than
you are of me?"
"I must distress you whatever I say, Vincent! Frankly, I don't think you
can decide just now whether your heart is really engaged. I think you do
not know me as a man should knows the woman he makes his wife. I am
certain I do not know you. If you had been born and bred in the North, I
should have no difficulty in deciding; but your ways are so different
here: women are accorded so much before marriage, and made so little of
a man's life after marriage, that I shrink from a promise which, if
lightly or inconsiderately given, would bring the last misery a woman
can confront."
"What, Olympia! you think Southern men do not hold marriage to be
sacred?"
"I think that the Southern man has a good deal of the knight you spoke
of in him, and, like the Frenchman, marries inconsiderately, and does
penance in infidelity, at least to the form, if not the fact, of the
relation."
"O Olympia! where do you get such repulsive ideas of us; who has been
traducing us to you?"
"I judge from the Southern men I have seen North; pardon me, Vincent, I
do not see how it can be otherwise in a society based upon human
servitude. To live on the labors of a helot people blunts the finer
sensibilities of men and women alike; when you can look unshrinkingly at
the separation of husband and wife on the auction-block, when you can
see innocent children taken from their mothers and sold into eternal
separation, I think it is not unnatural in me to fear that a woman with
my convictions would not be happy mated with a Southerner. All this is
cruel, I fear you will think, but it would be crueller for me to
encourage a love that, under present circumstances, would bring misery
to both of us."
"You are an abolitionist?"
"Yes; every right-thinking person in the North is an abolitionist to
this extent; we want the South to take the remedy into its own hands, to
free its slaves voluntarily; the radical abolitionists prefer a violent
means. That I do not seek or did not; but now, Vincent, it is bound
to come."
"And, if it should come, what would you answer to my question?"
"Here is a white rose: I picked it with my hand, and, you see, a drop of
my blood is on it; when you can give me a rose with a drop of your blood
on it as free from taint as the stain mine makes, I shall have an answer
that will not be unworthy your waiting for!"
"Unworthy! I don't understand you. Surely, you don't think me a
profligate?"
"When the time comes that no human being acknowledges your ownership,
perhaps you may receive a voluntary bond-maid, bound to you by stronger
ties than the chattel of the slave."
"But you love me, then, Olympia?"
"I can not love where I do not reverence."
"But it is not my fault that slaves are my inheritance!"
"It will be your fault if they are your support when you are your own
master."
"You love an idea better than you love a man who would die for you!"
"I love manliness and the sense of right, which is called duty, better
than I love a man who is blind to the first impulse of real manhood--"
"Would you ask a Jew to give up his synagogue to gain your hand?"
"The synagogue is the temple of a creed as divine as my own, and the
faith of the man I loved would never swerve me in accepting or
refusing him."
"We of the South believe slavery a divine institution--that is, first
established by the fathers!"
"The tribes in the Fiji Islands believe man-eating an ordinance of the
gods!"
"Well, this sort of discussion leads to nothing," Vincent said,
ruefully. "The world is well lost for the woman one loves, when I come
to you shorn of my world!"
"Ah! then, Vincent, you will find another!"
He drew her hand from the clinging vines and kissed it.
"I am very happy. I shall lose my world with a very light heart."
"The world is a very tough brier; we sometimes bring it closer, when its
thorns prick us more painfully in the struggles to cast it off."
"Then I'll cut the brambles, and not risk tearing my flesh!"
"That's the soldier's way--the heroic way; but wait for the future; I am
young and you are not old."
Vincent's gayety when they returned to the drawing-room attracted the
observant Dick, and he slyly whispered to the warrior, "Been practicing
the Roman strategy with the Sabines?"
"No, I've been at the Temple of Minerva and taken a pledge to hold my
tongue."
"Ah! the goddess of the owls; but, as they see light only in darkness, I
fear you groped in blackness."
The whole household were to meet President Davis and his party in
Williamsburg, assist at the review, and get back with the distinguished
guests in time for a state dinner. Merry and Mrs. Sprague were reluctant
to go, but they feared a refusal would be misunderstood. Poor Merry was
very tearful and disconsolate at the thought of leaving Dick, but she
strove heroically to hide her grief when the cavalcade set out, the
elder ladies driving, the young people mounted. The ancient capital of
Virginia was aflame with the new rebel bunting. President Davis, with
Generals Lee and Magruder, were in place on the pretty green before the
old colonial college edifice when the Rosedale people came up. Davis
saluted Mrs. Atterbury with cordial urbanity; but, as the troops were
already in column, there was only time for hasty presentation of the
strangers.
Jack watched the rather piebald pageant with absorbed interest. The
infantry marched wretchedly. The arms were as varied as the uniforms,
and the artillery seemed a relic of Jackson's time. But the cavalry was
superb. Never had he seen such splendid ranks, such noble horses. At
sight of the tall, elegant figure of the President, the troops broke
into the peculiar shrill cheer that afterward became a sound of wonder,
almost terror, to unaccustomed Northern ears. It was a mingling of the
boyish treble of college cries and the menacing shriek of the wild-cat.
Jack was secretly very much delighted with the review. More than half
the rank and file were mere boys; and he could see that they were
unruly, almost to point-blank disregard of their officers commands, or
the prescriptions of the manual. It would take short work for the
disciplined hosts the new Northern general was training, to sweep such
chaff from the field of war. Vincent saw something of this in his
comrade's eye, and a good deal nettled himself by the slovenly march and
humorous abandon of the men, he said:
"You must remember, Jack, our army is made up of gentlemen's sons; the
gentry of the South are all in arms, and we can't at once reduce them to
the mere machines a more heterogeneous soldiery can be made. The men who
won Manassas passed in review a day or two before the battle, and they
made the same impression upon me--upon Beauregard himself--that I see
these men have made on you. Depend upon it, in a fight they will be good
soldiers."
"Let me have the poor comfort of underrating my enemy, the thing above
all others that a wise man shuns and a fool indulges."
"Oh, on that theory revile them if you like."
"No, indeed; I'm far from reviling them. The cavalry is magnificent. I
don't think we have a regiment in our army that can compare with that
brigade. Who commands it?"
"Jeb Stuart--the Murat of the South," Vincent said, proudly. "I'm going
to tell the President what you said of the brigade; you know he is
passionately fond of the army, and really wanted to be the
commander-in-chief, when they made him President at Montgomery."
At sunset the President and General Lee entered the carriage with Mrs.
Atterbury and Mrs. Sprague, Merry driving in a phaeton with Kate, who
didn't enjoy so long a ride on the horse.
"I'm glad we've got such important hostages as yourself and son," Davis
said gallantly to Mrs. Sprague, as the carriage passed out of the clamor
of acclamation the crowd set up. "I knew the Senator, your husband,
intimately. If he had lived, I doubt whether we should have been driven
out of the Union. He was, in my mind, one of the most prudent statesmen
that came from the North to Congress."
"He certainly never would have consented to break up the Union," Mrs.
Sprague said, in embarrassment.
"Nor should I, madam, if there had been any further security in it. The
truth is, there was nothing left for us but to go out or be kicked out.
The leaders of the Abolition party long ago proclaimed that. However,
war settles all such problems. When it is settled by the sword we shall
be satisfied."
Mrs. Atterbury changed the conversation by asking how Mrs. Davis liked
Richmond.
"Oh, she has been treated royally by the people there. I declare
Richmond is as Southern a city as Charleston. I have been agreeably
surprised by the absolute unanimity of gentle and simple in the cause.
My wife receives a clothes-basketful of letters every morning from the
mothers of the Confederacy proffering time, money, and service wherever
she can suggest anything for them to do. I propose later on establishing
an order something like the Golden Fleece, which shall confer a certain
social precedence upon the wearers. I have thousands of letters on the
subject, and as the society of the South is, as a matter of fact, a
society of gentle-folk--for the most part lineally descended from the
nobility of older countries--I think it proper and right that lineage
should have certain acknowledged advantages in the new commonwealth. But
I propose to go further, and institute an order of something like
nobility for women--who have thus far given us great help and
encouragement. Indeed, there are many in the Congress--a dozen Senators
I could name--who think that we ought to make our regime entirely
different from the North, and that we should adopt a monarchical form--"
"I'm sure, I think we should," Mrs. Atterbury exclaimed, delightedly.
"We are really as unlike the Northern people as the French or
the Germans."
"The strongest argument for declaring the Confederacy an empire is the
one that weighed with Napoleon I. We should at one stroke secure the
alliance of all the monarchies. They have never looked with favor on the
experiment of a powerful republic over here, and it is almost certain
they would befriend us for transforming this mighty infant state into an
empire. However, that is for future action. Our agents abroad have sent
us full reports on the matter."
"I doubt the wisdom of ever hinting such a thing," General Lee said,
gravely. "We must show that we are able to act independently in
selecting our form of government. I doubt very much whether the masses
would listen favorably to an empire established by foreign aid."
"Possibly, general, possibly. As I said before, there will be time
enough for that when, like Napoleon, we have made our armies the masters
of this continent. Then, with boundaries embracing Mexico, Canada, and
the Western States--for they can never exist independent of us--we can
choose empire, republic, or a Venetian oligarchy."
As they came in sight of Rosedale, Davis stood up in the carriage to get
a better view of the landscape, which showed swift alternations of dense
thickets and wood and rolling acres of rich crops.
"What a State Virginia is!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "It has the
climate and soil to support half of Europe. Mother of Presidents in the
past, it will be the granary and magazine of the Confederacy in ten
years. My own State, Mississippi, is rich in land, but the climate is
hard for the stranger. It enervates the European at first. But we are an
agricultural people, or rather we give our energies to our staple,
cotton; that is to be the chief treasure of the Confederacy."
Dinner was ready for the table when the guests came from their rooms.
Davis excused his lack of ceremonial dress, saying pleasantly:
"I am something of a soldier, you know, and travel with a light train.
Lee, there, has the advantage of me. A soldier's uniform is court
costume the world over."
"But you are the commander-in-chief, Mr. President. Don't you have a
uniform?"
"No. I am commander-in-chief only in law. Congress is really the
commander-in-chief. The man that assumes those duties can attend to them
alone. He is, of course, subject to the executive; but only in general
plans, rarely in details."
Davis was placed at Mrs. Atterbury's right, Mrs. Sprague at her left,
General Lee sat at Vincent's right, _vis-à-vis_ to Jack, who was lost in
prodigious admiration of the Socratic-like chieftain--Lee was as yet
unknown to all but a discriminating few in the Confederacy. He was as
tall as Davis fully six feet--but more rounded and symmetrical. He spoke
with great gravity, but seemed to enjoy the jests that the young people
found opportunities to indulge in, when it was seen that the President
devoted his talk exclusively to the hostess or Mrs. Sprague. Davis was a
good talker, and charmed the company with reminiscences of old times
in Congress.
"I don't remember Lincoln distinctly," he said, concluding a
reminiscence, "but I think he's the man that used to be so popular in
the House cloak-room, telling stories which were said to be
extremely droll."
"Mrs. Lincoln is in some sort kin to Mrs. Davis, isn't she?" Mrs.
Atterbury asked. "I have read it somewhere."
"Very distant. Mrs. Lincoln is of the Kentucky Tods, and they were in
some way kin of my wife's family, the Howells. Not enough to put on
mourning, if Mrs. Lincoln should become a widow."
"Is it true, Mr. President, that a society in the North has offered a
million dollars for your capture--abduction? I heard it in Williamsburg,
and saw an allusion to it in _The Examiner_ the other day."
"Oh, I'm sure I can't say. If the offer were authenticated, I should be
tempted to go and get the reward myself. With a million dollars I could
do a good deal more for the cause in the North than I can here, making
brigadiers and settling questions of precedence between Cabinet
ministers, judges, and Senators."
"Mr. President, give me an exchange North, and I will ascertain the
facts in the million-dollar offer and write you faithfully how to set
about getting the money," Jack said, very soberly, from his end of
the table.
"Ah! the Yankee spoke there--nothing if not a bargain. Sir, you deserve
your clearance papers, but I'm too good a friend of Mrs. Atterbury and
her daughter to bring about the loss of company that I am sure must be
agreeable. Then, too, there's no telling the miracles of conversion that
may be brought about by such ministers as Miss Rosa there."
Rosa blushed, Jack felt foolish, and everybody laughed except Dick, who
looked unutterable things at his adored, and boldly entered the lists
against the great personage by asking, in a quivering treble:
"Doesn't the Bible say that the wife shall cleave to the husband; that
his people shall be her people, his God her God, where he goes
she goes?"
"It is so said in the Bible, sir; but it was a woman that uttered it,
and she was in love. When you know more of the sex, you will understand
that women in love are like poets; they say much that they don't mean,
and more that they don't understand."
"But, Mr. President, what the one woman said in the Bible all women
practice. You never knew a woman that didn't believe her husband's
beliefs, hate his hates, love his loves."
Davis smiled, and his eyes twinkled kindly on his boyish inquisitor.
"I know only one woman. That is as much as a man can speak for. She
doesn't hate my hates, love my loves, or enter unprotestingly into all
my ways. Indeed, I may say that, being a peaceful man, I wanted to
remain in Washington, for I believed that Seward was sincere in pleading
for a compromise; but the woman I speak of had her own opinion convinced
me that she was right, and I came to my own people."
At this moment there was a diversion. A soldier, booted and spurred,
entered the room, walked to the head of the table, and bending
deferentially to the President, said;
"I am ordered to deliver this message wherever you may be found." He
handed Davis a large envelope and retreated respectfully two or three
paces backward. Everybody affected to resume conversation as the
President, breaking the seal, said;
"Pardon me a moment, madam." But he had no sooner ran over the lines
than he turned to the courier, crying, in visible discomfiture:
"When did you leave the war office?"
"At five o'clock, sir."
"General, we must return instantly to Richmond; a hundred or more of the
prisoners have broken out of Libby! It is reported that a column of the
enemy with gunboats have passed up the James.--Madam, this is one of the
exigencies of a time of war. I needn't say to an Atterbury that
everything must give way to public business!" He called Lee aside, spoke
rapidly to him, and the latter, beckoning Vincent, left the room. He
returned in ten minutes, announcing that everything was in readiness to
set out. The carriage with Mrs. Sprague's and Merry's small luggage was
ready when the cavalcade set out, Davis riding with them and the cavalry
company from below, divided into squadrons before and behind the
carriage. It was eleven o'clock as the last dark line of the troop
disappeared. Olympia and Jack stood at the great gate in mournful
silence. The swiftness of the parting had lessened the pain, but their
minds were full of the sorrow that follows the inevitable. Mrs. Sprague
had herself declined to postpone the ordeal when Mrs. Atterbury pointed
out the untimely hour. No, it was better to suffer this slight
inconvenience to have Vincent's protecting presence all the way to the
Union lines; and Jack, acknowledging this, didn't say a word to dissuade
her. Vincent's last act was to call Jack to his room.
"I wanted to tell you, Jack, what a great joy it has been to me--it has
been to all of us--to have you in our home at this trying time. I can
not tell you how much comfort it has been to me now, but some time you
shall know," Vincent stammered, and began to open a drawer in the
bureau. "Here is something I want you to accept as a keepsake from me."
He drew forth a pistol-case and opened it. "It will be a melancholy
pleasure for me to feel, in the dark days to come, that these weapons
may prove your friend in battle, where I must be your enemy."
"By George, they're beauties!" Jack cried, taking the weapons out.
"Yes; they were bought last year, and I have had J.S. cut on one, and
V.A. on the other. I meant them for your Christmas last year, but they
were mislaid."
"What a kind fellow you are, Vint! I don't think I ought to take these."
"Why not? I have others! I shall feel easier, knowing that you have
them. You can stow them about you easily, they are so small."
"But it's against the laws of war for a prisoner to be armed."
"That's just the reason I haven't asked you to take them before. You can
leave them here in my room until you are exchanged, and then you can
carry them with impunity."
The household assembled at the gate leading into the roadway as the
cavalcade took up the march. There were sad, sobbing farewells
spoken--the kindly night covering the tears, and the loud neighing of
the horses drowning the sobs.
The Northern group remained in the roadway, straining their eyes to
catch the last glimpse of the wanderers as they disappeared in the misty
foliage, far up the roadway.
The horizon to the zenith was full of shimmering star-points, Olympia,
with Jack, turned slowly toward the house, silent and not wholly sad.
Dick, in a low treble, could be heard just behind them, quoting
melancholy verses to Rosa; and the brother and sister returned slowly up
the dewy, odorous path. At the porch Rosa exclaimed, in surprise:
"I wonder where Pizarro is? I haven't seen him while we have been out.
It can't be possible he has followed Vincent! What shall we do if
he has?"
"Make Dick take his place. A terrier is sometimes as faithful as a
mastiff," Jack said, quickly.
"Oh! Miss Atterbury wants something with a bite, rather than a bark, and
a terrier wouldn't do," the boy answered.
"I want Pizarro. I shall never sleep a wink all night if he isn't here,"
Rosa said, in consternation; "he is better than a regiment of soldiers,
for he won't let a human being come near the house after the doors are
closed, not even the servants."
An expedition, calling upon Pizarro in many keys, set out and wandered
through the grounds, back to the quarters, to the gates leading to the
rose-fields, to the stable, but Pizarro was not to be found. Lights were
burning in the hall only when the four re-entered, and with a very grave
face Rosa bade the rest good-night.