of the old man had gradually turned themselves to that division in the
nation to which he naturally belonged. For months past the matter on
which they were all thinking--the subject which filled their minds
morning, noon, and night,--was banished from their lips because it could
not be discussed without the bitterness of hostility. But, nevertheless,
there was no word of bitterness between Tom Reckenthorpe and Ada
Forster. While these few short days lasted it was all love. Where is the
woman whom one touch of romance will not soften, though she be ever so
impervious to argument? Tom could sit up stairs with his mother and his
betrothed, and tell them stories of the gallantry of the South,--of the
sacrifices women were making, and of the deeds men were doing,--and they
would listen and smile and caress his hand, and all for awhile would be
pleasant; while the old major did not dare to speak before them of his
Southern hopes. But down in the parlour, during the two or three long
nights which General Tom passed in Frankfort, open Secession was
discussed between the two men. The old man now had given away
altogether. The Yankees, he said, were too bitter for him.
“I wish I had died first; that is all,” he said. “I wish I had died
first. Life is wretched now to a man who can do nothing.”
His son tried to comfort him, saying that Secession would certainly be
accomplished in twelve months, and that every Slave State would
certainly be included in the Southern Confederacy. But the major shook
his head. Though he hated the political bitterness of the men whom he
called Puritans and Yankees, he knew their strength and acknowledged
their power.
“Nothing good can come in my time,” he said; “not in my time,--not in my
time.”
In the middle of the fourth night General Tom took his departure. An old
slave arrived with his horse a little before midnight, and he started on
his journey.
“Whatever turns up, Ada,” he said, “you will be true to me.”
“I will; though you are a rebel all the same for that.”
“So was Washington.”
“Washington made a nation;--you are destroying one.”
“We are making another, dear; that’s all. But I won’t talk Secesh to you
out here in the cold. Go in, and be good to my father; and remember
this, Ada, I’ll be here again next Christmas-eve, if I’m alive.”
So he went, and made his journey back to his own camp in safety. He
slept at a friend’s house during the following day, and on the next
night again made his way through the Northern lines back into Virginia.
Even at that time there was considerable danger in doing this, although
the frontier to be guarded was so extensive. This arose chiefly from the
paucity of roads, and the impossibility of getting across the country
where no roads existed. But General Tom got safely back to Richmond, and
no doubt found that the tedium of his military life had been greatly
relieved by his excursion.
Then, after that, came a year of fighting,--and there has since come
another year of fighting; of such fighting that we, hearing the accounts
from day to day, have hitherto failed to recognise its extent and
import. Every now and then we have even spoke of the inaction of this
side or of that, as though the drawn battles which have lasted for days,
in which men have perished by tens of thousands, could be renewed as
might the old German battles, in which an Austrian general would be ever
retreating with infinite skill and military efficacy. For constancy, for
blood, for hard determination to win at any cost of life or material,
history has known no such battles as these. That the South have fought
the best as regards skill no man can doubt. As regards pluck and
resolution there has not been a pin’s choice between them. They have
both fought as Englishmen fight when they are equally in earnest. As
regards result, it has been almost altogether in favour of the North,
because they have so vast a superiority in numbers and material.
General Tom Reckenthorpe remained during the year in Virginia, and was
attached to that corps of General Lee’s army which was commanded by
Stonewall Jackson. It was not probable, therefore, that he would be left
without active employment. During the whole year he was fighting,
assisting in the wonderful raids that were made by that man whose loss
was worse to the Confederates than the loss of Vicksburg or of New
Orleans. And General Tom gained for himself mark, name, and glory,--but
it was the glory of a soldier rather than of a general. No one looked
upon him as the future commander of an army; but men said that if there
was a rapid stroke to be stricken, under orders from some more
thoughtful head, General Tom was the hand to strike it. Thus he went on
making wonderful rides by night, appearing like a warrior ghost leading
warrior ghosts in some quiet valley of the Federals, seizing supplies
and cutting off cattle, till his name came to be great in the State of
Kentucky, and Ada Forster, Yankee though she was, was proud of her rebel
lover.
And Frank Reckenthorpe, the other general, made progress also, though it
was progress of a different kind. Men did not talk of him so much as
they did of Tom; but the War Office at Washington knew that he was
useful,--and used him. He remained for a long time attached to the
Western army, having been removed from Kentucky to St. Louis, in
Missouri, and was there when his brother last heard of him.
“I am fighting day and night,” he once said to one who was with him from
his own state, “and, as far as I can learn, Frank is writing day and
night. Upon my word, I think that I have the best of it.”
It was but a couple of days after this, the time then being about the
latter end of September, that Tom Reckenthorpe found himself on
horseback at the head of three regiments of cavalry, near the foot of
one of those valleys which lead up into the Blue Mountain ridge of
Virginia. He was about six miles in advance of Jackson’s army, and had
pushed forward with the view of intercepting certain Federal supplies
which he and others had hoped might be within his reach. He had expected
that there would be fighting, but he had hardly expected so much
fighting as came that day in his way. He got no supplies. Indeed, he got
nothing but blows, and though on that day the Confederates would not
admit that they had been worsted, neither could they claim to have done
more than hold their own. But General Tom’s fighting was on that day
brought to an end.
It must be understood that there was no great battle fought on this
occasion. General Reckenthorpe, with about 1500 troopers, had found
himself suddenly compelled to attack about double that number of Federal
infantry.
He did so once, and then a second time, but on each occasion without
breaking the lines to which he was opposed; and towards the close of the
day he found himself unhorsed, but still unwounded, with no weapon in
his hand but his pistol, immediately surrounded by about a dozen of his
own men, but so far in advance of the body of his troops as to make it
almost impossible that he should find his way back to them.
As the smoke cleared away and he could look about him, he saw that he
was close to an uneven, irregular line of Federal soldiers. But there
was still a chance, and he had turned for a rush, with his pistol ready
for use in his hand, when he found himself confronted by a Federal
officer. The pistol was already raised, and his finger was on the
trigger, when he saw that the man before him was his brother.
“Your time is come,” said Frank, standing his ground very calmly. He was
quite unarmed, and had been separated from his men and ridden over; but
hitherto had not been hurt.
“Frank!” said Tom, dropping his pistol arm, “is that you?”
“And you are not going to do it, then?” said Frank.
“Do what?” said Tom, whose calmness was altogether gone. But he had
forgotten that threat as soon as it had been uttered, and did not even
know to what his brother was alluding.
But Tom Reckenthorpe, in his confusion at meeting his brother, had lost
whatever chance there remained to him of escaping. He stood for a moment
or two, looking at Frank, and wondering at the coincidence which had
brought them together, before he turned to run. Then it was too late. In
the hurry and scurry of the affair all but two of his own men had left
him, and he saw that a rush of Federal soldiers was coming up around
him.
Nevertheless he resolved to start for a run.
“Give me a chance, Frank,” he said, and prepared to run. But as he
went,--or rather before he had left the ground on which he was standing
before his brother, a shot struck him, and he was disabled. In a minute
he was as though he were stunned; then he smiled faintly, and slowly
sunk upon the ground.
“It’s all up, Frank,” he said, “and you are in at the death.”
Frank Reckenthorpe was soon kneeling beside his brother, amidst a crowd
of his own men.
“Spurrell,” he said to a young officer who was close to him, “it is my
own brother.”
“What, General Tom?” said Spurrell. “Not dangerously, I hope?”
By this time the wounded man had been able, as it were, to feel himself
and to ascertain the amount of the damage done him.
“It’s my right leg,” he said: “just on the knee. If you’ll believe me,
Frank, I thought it was my heart at first. I don’t think much of the
wound, but I suppose you won’t let me go.”
Of course they wouldn’t let him go, and indeed if they had been minded
so to do, he could not have gone. The wound was not fatal, as he had at
first thought; but neither was it a matter of little consequence, as he
afterwards asserted. His fighting was over, unless he could fight with a
leg amputated between the knee and the hip.
Before nightfall General Tom found himself in his brother’s quarters, a
prisoner on parole, with his leg all but condemned by the surgeon. The
third day after that saw the leg amputated. For three weeks the two
brothers remained together, and after that the elder was taken to
Washington,--or rather to Alexandria, on the other side of the Potomac,
as a prisoner, there to await his chance of exchange. At first the
intercourse between the two brothers was cold, guarded, and
uncomfortable; but after a while it became more kindly than it had been
for many a day. Whether it were cold or kindly, its nature, we may be
sure, was such as the younger brother made it. Tom was ready enough to
forget all personal animosity as soon as his brother would himself be
willing to do so; though he was willing enough also to quarrel,--to
quarrel bitterly as ever, if Frank should give him occasion. As to that
threat of the pistol, it had passed away from Tom Reckenthorpe, as all
his angry words passed from him. It was clean forgotten. It was not
simply that he had not wished to kill his brother, but that such a deed
was impossible to him. The threat had been like a curse that means
nothing,--which is used by passion as its readiest weapon when passion
is impotent. But with Frank Reckenthorpe words meant what they were
intended to mean. The threat had rankled in his bosom from the time of
its utterance, to that moment when a strange coincidence had given the
threatener the power of executing it. The remembrance of it was then
strong upon him, and he had expected that his brother would have been as
bad as his word. But his brother had spared him; and now, slowly, by
degrees, he began to remember that also.
“What are your plans, Tom?” he said, as he sat one day by his brother’s
bed before the removal of the prisoner to Alexandria. “Plans?” said Tom.
“How should a poor fellow like me have plans? To eat bread and water in
prison at Alexandria, I suppose?”
“They’ll let you up to Washington on your parole, I should think. Of
course, I can say a word for you.”
“Well, then, do say it. I’d have done as much for you, though I don’t
like your Yankee politics.”
“Never mind my politics now, Tom.”
“I never did mind them. But at any rate, you see I can’t run away.”
It should have been mentioned a little way back in this story that the
poor old major had been gathered to his fathers during the past year. As
he had said himself, it would be better for him that he should die. He
had lived to see the glory of his country, and had gloried in it. If
further glory, or even further gain, were to come out of this terrible
war,--as great gains to men and nations do come from contests which are
very terrible while they last,--he at least would not live to see it. So
when he was left by his sons, he turned his face to the wall and died.
There had of course been much said on this subject between the two
brothers when they were together, and Frank had declared how special
orders had been given to protect the house of the widow, if the waves of
the war in Kentucky should surge up around Frankfort. Land very near to
Frankfort had become debateable between the two armies, and the question
of flying from their house had more than once been mooted between the
aunt and her niece; but, so far, that evil day had been staved off, and
as yet Frankfort, the little capital of the state, was Northern
territory.
“I suppose you will get home,” said Frank, after musing awhile, “and
look after my mother and Ada?”
“If I can I shall, of course. What else can I do with one leg?”
“Nothing in this war, Tom, of course.”
Then there was another pause between them.
“What will Ada do?” said Frank.
“What will Ada do? Stay at home with my mother.”
“Ay,--yes. But she will not remain always as Ada Forster.”
“Do you mean to ask whether I shall marry her;--because of my one leg?
If she will have me, I certainly shall.”
“And will she? Ought you to ask her?”
“If I found her seamed all over with small-pox, with her limbs broken,
blind, disfigured by any misfortune which could have visited her, I
would take her as my wife all the same. If she were penniless it would
make no difference. She shall judge for herself; but I shall expect her
to act by me as I would have acted by her.” Then there was another
pause. “Look here, Frank,” continued General Tom, “if you mean that I am
to give her up as a reward to you for being sent home, I will have
nothing to do with the bargain.”
“I had intended no such bargain,” said Frank, gloomily.
“Very well; then you can do as you please. If Ada will take me, I shall
marry her as soon as she will let me. If my being sent home depends upon
that, you will know how to act now.”
Nevertheless he was sent home. There was not another word spoken between
the two brothers about Ada Forster. Whether Frank thought that he might
still have a chance through want of firmness on the part of the girl; or
whether he considered that in keeping his brother away from home he
could at least do himself no good; or whether, again, he resolved that
he would act by his brother as a brother should act, without reference
to Ada Forster, I will not attempt to say. For a day or two after the
above conversation he was somewhat sullen, and did not talk freely with
his brother. After that he brightened up once more, and before long the
two parted on friendly terms. General Frank remained with his command,
and General Tom was sent to the hospital at Alexandria,--or to such
hospitalities as he might be able to enjoy at Washington in his
mutilated state,--till that affair of his exchange had been arranged.
In spite of his brother’s influence at head-quarters this could not be
done in a day; nor could permission be obtained for him to go home to
Kentucky till such exchange had been effected. In this way he was kept
in terrible suspense for something over two months, and mid-winter was
upon him before the joyful news arrived that he was free to go where he
liked. The officials in Washington would have sent him back to Richmond
had he so pleased, seeing that a Federal general officer, supposed to be
of equal weight with himself, had been sent back from some Southern
prison in his place; but he declined any such favour, declaring his
intention of going home to Kentucky. He was simply warned that no pass
South could after this be granted to him, and then he went his way.
Disturbed as was the state of the country, nevertheless railways ran
from Washington to Baltimore, from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, from
Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, and from Cincinnati to Frankfort. So that
General Tom’s journey home, though with but one leg, was made much
faster, and with less difficulty, than that last journey by which he
reached the old family house. And again he presented himself on
Christmas-eve. Ada declared that he remained purposely at Washington, so
that he might make good his last promise to the letter; but I am
inclined to think that he allowed no such romantic idea as that to
detain him among the amenities of Washington.
He arrived again after dark, but on this occasion did not come knocking
at the back door. He had fought his fight, had done his share of the
battle, and now had reason to be afraid of no one. But again it was Ada
who opened the door for him, “Oh, Tom; oh, my own one!” There never was
a word of question between them as to whether that unseemly crutch and
still unhealed wound was to make any difference between them. General
Tom found before three hours were over that he lacked the courage to
suggest that he might not be acceptable to her as a lover with one leg.
There are times in which girls throw off all their coyness, and are as
bold in their loves as men. Such a time was this with Ada Forster. In
the course of another month the elder general simply sent word to the
younger that they intended to be married in May, if the war did not
prevent them; and the younger general simply sent back word that his
duties at head-quarters would prevent his being present at the ceremony.
And they were married in May, though the din of war was going on around
them on every side. And from that time to this the din of war is still
going on, and they are in the thick of it. The carnage of their battles,
and the hatreds of their civil contests, are terrible to us when we
think of them: but may it not be that the beneficent power of Heaven,
which they acknowledge as we do, is thus cleansing their land from that
stain of slavery, to abolish which no human power seemed to be
sufficient?
[Illustration: text decoration]
FATHER GILES OF BALLYMOY.
[Illustration: text decoration]
FATHER GILES OF BALLYMOY.
It is nearly thirty years since I, Archibald Green, first entered the
little town of Ballymoy, in the west of Ireland, and became acquainted
with one of the honestest fellows and best Christians whom it has ever
been my good fortune to know. For twenty years he and I were fast
friends, though he was much my elder. As he has now been ten years
beneath the sod, I may tell the story of our first meeting.
Ballymoy is a so-called town,--or was in the days of which I am
speaking,--lying close to the shores of Lough Corrib, in the county of
Galway. It is on the road to no place, and, as the end of a road, has in
itself nothing to attract a traveller. The scenery of Lough Corrib is
grand; but the lake is very large, and the fine scenery is on the side
opposite to Ballymoy, and hardly to be reached, or even seen, from that
place. There is fishing,--but it is lake fishing. The salmon fishing of
Lough Corrib is far away from Ballymoy, where the little river runs away
from the lake down to the town of Galway. There was then in Ballymoy one
single street, of which the characteristic at first sight most striking
to a stranger was its general appearance of being thoroughly wet
through. It was not simply that the rain water was generally running
down its unguttered streets in muddy, random rivulets, hurrying towards
the lake with true Irish impetuosity, but that each separate house
looked as though the walls were reeking with wet; and the alternated
roofs of thatch and slate,--the slated houses being just double the
height of those that were thatched,--assisted the eye and mind of the
spectator in forming this opinion. The lines were broken everywhere, and
at every break it seemed as though there was a free entrance for the
waters of heaven. The population of Ballymoy was its second wonder.
There had been no famine then; no rot among the potatoes; and land
around Ballymoy had been let for nine, ten, and even eleven pounds an
acre. At all hours of the day, and at nearly all hours of the night,
able-bodied men were to be seen standing in the streets, with
knee-breeches unbuttoned, with stockings rolled down over their
brogues, and with swallow-tailed frieze coats. Nor, though thus idle,
did they seem to suffer any of the distress of poverty. There were
plenty of beggars, no doubt, in Ballymoy, but it never struck me that
there was much distress in those days. The earth gave forth its potatoes
freely, and neither man nor pig wanted more.
It was to be my destiny to stay a week at Ballymoy, on business, as to
the nature of which I need not trouble the present reader. I was not, at
that time, so well acquainted with the manners of the people of
Connaught as I became afterwards, and I had certain misgivings as I was
driven into the village on a jaunting-car from Tuam. I had just come
down from Dublin, and had been informed there that there were two
“hotels” in Ballymoy, but that one of the “hotels” might, perhaps, be
found deficient in some of those comforts which I, as an Englishman,
might require. I was therefore to ask for the “hotel” kept by Pat
Kirwan. The other hotel was kept by Larry Kirwan; so that it behoved me
to be particular. I had made the journey down from Dublin in a night and
a day, travelling, as we then did travel in Ireland, by canal boats and
by Bianconi’s long cars; and I had dined at Tuam, and been driven over,
after dinner on an April evening; and when I reached Ballymoy I was
tired to death and very cold.
“Pat Kirwan’s hotel,” I said to the driver, almost angrily. “Mind you
don’t go to the other.”
“Shure, yer honour, and why not to Larry’s? You’d be getting better
enthertainment at Larry’s, because of Father Giles.”
I understood nothing about Father Giles, and wished to understand
nothing. But I did understand that I was to go to Pat Kirwan’s “hotel,”
and thither I insisted on being taken.
It was dusk at this time, and the wind was blowing down the street of
Ballymoy, carrying before it wild gusts of rain. In the west of Ireland
March weather comes in April, and it comes with a violence of its own,
though not with the cruelty of the English east wind. At this moment my
neck was ricked by my futile endeavours to keep my head straight on the
side car, and the water had got under me upon the seat, and the horse
had come to a stand-still half-a-dozen times in the last two minutes,
and my apron had been trailed in the mud, and I was very unhappy. For
the last ten minutes I had been thinking evil of everything Irish, and
especially of Connaught.
I was driven up to a queerly-shaped, three-cornered house, that stood
at the bottom of the street, and which seemed to possess none of the
outside appurtenances of an inn.
“Is this Pat Kirwan’s hotel?” said I.
“Faix, and it is then, yer honour,” said the driver. “And barring only
that Father Giles----”
But I had rung the bell, and as the door was now opened by a barefooted
girl, I entered the little passage without hearing anything further
about Father Giles.
“Could I have a bed-room immediately, with a fire in it?”
Not answering me directly, the girl led me into a sitting-room, in which
my nose was at once greeted by that peculiar perfume which is given out
by the relics of hot whisky-punch mixed with a great deal of sugar, and
there she left me.
“Where is Pat Kirwan himself?” said I, coming to the door, and
blustering somewhat. For, let it be remembered, I was very tired; and it
may be a fair question whether in the far west of Ireland a little
bluster may not sometimes be of service. “If you have not a room ready,
I will go to Larry Kirwan’s,” said I, showing that I understood the
bearings of the place.
“It’s right away at the furder end then, yer honour,” said the driver,
putting in his word, “and we comed by it ever so long since. But shure
yer honour wouldn’t think of leaving this house for that?”
This he said because Pat Kirwan’s wife was close behind him.
Then Mrs. Kirwan assured me that I could and should be accommodated. The
house, to be sure, was crowded, but she had already made arrangements,
and had a bed ready. As for a fire in my bed-room, she could not
recommend that, “becase the wind blew so mortial sthrong down the
chimney since the pot had blown off,--bad cess to it; and that loon,
Mick Hackett, wouldn’t lend a hand to put it up again, becase there were
jobs going on at the big house,--bad luck to every joint of his body,
thin,” said Mrs. Kirwan, with great energy. Nevertheless, she and Mick
Hackett the mason were excellent friends.