that if he could see me alone later in the evening, when he had
recovered from the shock of his capture, I might be willing to talk
with him. In the evening the Hun repaired to the dismantled warehouse
where the prisoners were lodged, to hold conversation with the
new-comers. When he came to the clergyman he found him so low spoken
that their talk fell almost to a whisper, but it was whispered that
he was to be taken alone, and subsequent disclosures led to his being
brought to headquarters. He there informed me that he was a minister
of the Methodist church, Canadian by birth and education, but married
to a lady of that region, and had been for some years engaged there in
his capacity as a circuit preacher. He was quite blind, and found it
impossible to make his rounds without being driven.
His sympathies were with the North, and he was burning to make himself
useful in the only way left him by his infirmity. His wife was of
a suspecting disposition, and their peaceful consorting required
that she should always accompany him; but, unfortunately, she was a
violent secessionist, and he had been compelled, in the interest of
the peaceful consorting above named, to acknowledge sympathy with her
views, and to join her in her revilings of the Union army.
All this made his position difficult, yet he believed that, if the
opportunity were given him, he could hide his intention even from her,
and could gather for us much useful information.
He was a welcome visitor at the houses of the faithful, far and near,
and warmed their hearts with frequent and feeling exhortation, as he
gathered his little meetings at his nightly stopping-places. He was now
about starting for the southern circuit, and had appointments to preach
and to pray at every town between us and Bolivar.
Evidently, if this man were honest in his intentions, he could be of
great service, but I suggested the difficulty that having once started
for an appointed round he could not return to bring us any information
he might receive. To this he replied that his wife believed him to be
in Forrest's service, and that he could at any time come as a spy into
our lines.
It seemed a very questionable case, but, after consultation with Voisin
and the Hun, it was determined to give him a trial, to prevent his wife
from seeing more than was necessary of our position, and to believe so
much as we liked of the information he might give us. The conditions of
the engagement were agreed upon, and after a severe public admonition,
and threats especially appalling to his wife, he was sent outside the
lines, with hints of the serious consequences that would follow his
second capture.
We were never quite sure that his wife was wrong in crediting him
with complicity with Forrest; but the worst that could be said of him
(and this was very likely true) was that he was pre-eminently a man
of peace, and if he gave information to both sides, it was always
information in compliance with the injunctions of his sacred calling.
The Rebel forces several times crossed into Tennessee, and came toward
us in numbers that indicated foul intentions, but, from the time
our pious friend first visited us, they invariably withdrew without
an engagement. Frequently small expeditions of our own forces went
scouting to the southward, and were checked and turned back by the
reports of this benevolent man.
He may have kept us from the successful fulfilment of some bloody
intentions, but we had occasion to know from other sources that he
sometimes kept small detachments of our troops from falling in with
overpowering numbers of the enemy. Be the theory what it may, from
November until February there was no conflict of arms in all the
counties we traversed, and neither side advanced to within deadly range
of the other.
The processes of this emissary were hidden and curious. He was
employed in a much more regulated manner than Dixon, and we generally
knew his whereabouts. Every interview had with him, either within our
own camp or when we were abroad, had to be so skilfully managed that no
suspicion, even in the eyes of his catlike wife, should attach to him.
He never came into our lines except as an unwilling prisoner, and was
never sent without them without dire admonition as to the consequences
of his return.
On one occasion Pat Dixon reported that a detachment of Forrest's
command, about three hundred strong, had crossed the railroad and was
moving north in the direction of our camp. At this time the preacher
was near us, and I had an interview with him. He doubted the report,
but would investigate. I told him we would start the next day, with
five hundred men, in the direction of Trenton,--where he was to hold a
prayer-meeting at the house of one of Forrest's captains. The meeting
was held, and after it was over, the subject of the advance was talked
over very freely by the officers present, he sitting in a rapt state of
unconsciousness--his thoughts on higher things--at the chimney-corner.
Pleading an early appointment at McKenzie's Station for the following
day, he left as soon as the moon was up, and drove to the house of a
friend in the village. His wife supposed that he was coming with a
false report to lead us into a trap laid for us.
We arrived at McKenzie's at one o'clock in the morning, after a
detestably cold, hard ride, and took up our quarters in a half-finished
and half-furnished house, where we struggled the whole night through in
the endeavor to get heat out of a fire of wet dead-wood. Early in the
morning the Hun started out, in his fiercest mood, with a small escort,
seeking for information and hunting up suspicious characters. At
breakfast-time he came upon a large family comfortably seated at table,
with our preacher and his wife as guests.
He was asked to "sit by." "Thank you; I have come for more serious
business. Who is at the head of this house? I should like to see you
alone, sir." The trembling, invalided paterfamilias was taken into an
adjoining room, and put through the usual course of questions as to his
age, place of birth, occupation, condition as to literacy, the number
of negroes owned, the amount of land, what relatives in the Rebel army,
to what extent a sympathizer with the Rebellion, when he had last
seen any Rebel soldiers or scouts or guerillas or suspicious persons
of any description, and so on, through the tortuous and aggravating
list that only a lawyer could invent. Questions and answers were taken
down in writing. The sterner questions were spoken in a voice audible
to the terror-stricken family in the adjoining room. The man, of
course, communicated nothing, and probably knew nothing, of the least
consequence. He was sent to a third room and kept under guard. His case
disposed of, his wife was examined in like manner, and then the other
members of the family. Finally, the coast being clear, our emissary
was sent for. He came into the room chuckling with delight over
this skilful exercise of the art of deceit, in which he was himself
such an adept, and laying his hand on the Hun's arm, said, "My dear
fellow, I respect you. This has been the most brilliant dodge I ever
knew,--capital,--capital!" And he then went on to recount all that he
had heard the evening before. A large detachment of Forrest's command
was advancing under Faulkner's leadership, and they doubtless had by
this time a full report of our position, for he had met acquaintance on
the road who had reported it to him. If we were able to engage a body
of three thousand men without artillery, we might find them that night
in Trenton,--he was confident that that was about their number.
The family were now notified that they had been guilty of a great
offence in harboring a known spy of the enemy; but they insisted
that they knew him only as a devout and active minister, and had no
suspicion, nor could they believe, that he had the least knowledge of
or interest in either army. With due warning as to the consequences
of a repetition of their crime, they were allowed to return to their
breakfast, and their guest was brought under guard to headquarters.
Being satisfied, after a close examination of the report, that it
would be imprudent to remain so far from our camp, which could be best
reached from Trenton by another road, we left a party of observation,
and returned to Union City, directing our scout to go to the vicinity
of Trenton and bring to our detachment any information he might obtain.
Twelve hours after our arrival home, the detachment returned with the
news that Faulkner, with a large force, had moved toward Mayfield,
Kentucky, and the event proved that every item of the intelligence we
had received had been substantially correct.
In this manner we were enabled to learn pretty definitely the
character of any movement of the enemy anywhere in Western Tennessee,
and so far as we had opportunity to investigate the reports they
generally proved to be essentially true. These two scouts were worth
more as a source of information, than would have been two regiments of
cavalry in active service. Sometimes our Methodist friend acted under
definite orders, but more often only according to his own judgment of
what was necessary.
A few days before Christmas we received word that Forrest in person
was in Jackson, with a large force, and we moved against him with
nearly the whole body of our troops, under the command of old A. J.
himself. We reached Jackson at night, after three days' hard marching,
only to find that Forrest's army had left that morning, destroying
the bridges over the swollen rivers and making organized pursuit
impossible. We took up quarters for some days in the town, where we
enjoyed the peculiarly lovely climate of the "sunny South" with the
thermometer seven degrees below zero, six inches of snow on the ground,
and a howling wind blowing. Our own mess was very snugly entertained
at the house of a magnate, where we had an opportunity to study the
fitness of even the best Southern architecture for an Arctic winter
climate.
On New Year's day, as we were sitting at a sumptuous dinner, and
mitigating so far as we could the annoyance to our hosts of being
invaded by a rollicking party of Northern officers, Voisin, who had
been called out, returned to the table to tell me that a man and a
woman would like to see me in my room. I was not prompt to respond, and
asked who they were. He replied, "O, who can tell? I suppose somebody
with a complaint that our men have 'taken some hams of meat' ["meat"
being the Tennessee vulgate for hog flesh only], or something of that
sort; the man seemed to have something the matter with his eyes." And
he gave me a large and expressive wink.
Ensconced, with such comfort as large and rattling windows permitted,
before our blazing fire, sat our serene Methodist friend and his sullen
wife. Taking me aside, he told me that he had passed the previous
evening at a private house between Jackson and Bolivar in religious
exercises, which were attended by Forrest and officers of his command.
After the devotions there was much cheerful and unrestrained talk as
to the plans and prospects of the future campaign, disclosing the
fact that as there seemed no chance of doing efficient service in
Tennessee, the whole body would move at once to Central Mississippi
and operate in connection with the army in Georgia. This report, which
we had no reason to disbelieve, decided A. J. to abandon a difficult
and unpromising pursuit, and to return to Union City and Columbus. We
found, on our return, a communication from the headquarters at Memphis
to the effect that Forrest had crossed the railroad and gone far south
into Mississippi.
We had no further service of importance or interest in this region.
"Jackson's Purchase" was thenceforward quite free from any considerable
body of the enemy; and when our clergyman found, a few weeks later,
that we were all ordered to the south, he came for a settlement of his
accounts, saying that he had been able to deceive his wife only up to
the time of our interview at Jackson, and as his life was no longer
safe in the country, he must depart for the more secure region of his
former home in Canada,--where let us hope that he has been allowed to
answer the behests of his sacred vocation with a mind single to his
pious duties, and that domestic suspicion no longer clouds his happy
hearthstone.
Happily, neither A. J. nor Forrest himself had further occasion for his
peaceful intervention, the fortunate absence of which may have had to
do with the notable encounter between these two generals at Tupelo.
IN THE GLOAMING.
The sun had gone, and above the dreamy blue of the far-lying woods,
the early evening had hung the sky with mellow, summery, twilight
loveliness.
The casements of the old house at Whittington glowed ruddy and warm
through their marvellous clustering ivy, and it was the idlest luxury
to hang over the crumbling road-wall, peopling its suggestive chambers
with the spirits of their long-gone tenants. It is a farm-house now,
and there is no available record to tell the stranger the story of
its more glorious days. No rigid history hampers the fancy, and the
strolling lover of the by-ways and roadsides of our dear Mother England
may let his imagination run with flowing rein, sweeping away the
hayricks and marigold beds, and calling back the peacocks and bagwigs
of the halcyon days.
Perhaps for the last time in my life I was taking the breath of an
English twilight,--sweetest to those whose childhood and youth have fed
on the rhyme and tale the green old land has sent to her world-wide
brood, and who come, in riper life, to find the fancies of early years
warm and living on every side, in hedge and field, in cowslip and
primrose, in nightingale and lark. The thick-coming impressions such
musing brings are vague and dreamy, so that there seemed a shade of
unreality in the quiet voice that bade me "Good evening," and added,
"Yes, it is an engaging old house, and it has a story that you may be
glad to hear."
It was not from perversity that I turned the subject, but no tale of
real life could have added interest to the fancies with which the old
manse had clad itself in the slowly waning day. Wayside impressions
lose their charm if too much considered, and, as my new companion was
walking toward Lichfield, I was glad to turn away and join him,--ending
a long day's tramp with the slow and quiet gait that his age compelled.
There was the least shade of the uncanny in his bearing, and his speech
was timorous and gentle. His threadbare and seedy look betokened a
native unthrift, but there was an undercurrent of refinement in his
mien and in his manner, and a trusting outlook from his large blue eyes
that made him the fittest of companions for a summer evening's walk in
a country filled with the mingled flavor of history and romance.
He was a man of the intensest local training. To him "the County of
the City of Lichfield" was of more consequence than all Staffordshire
besides, and far more than all England and all that vague entity called
the World. Even the County of the City of Lichfield was large for his
concentrated attachment: he knew it as one must know a small town in
which he has passed the whole of a long life; but his heart lay within
the cathedral close, and the cathedral close lay deep within his
heart,--deep and warm, with its history and its traditions, its romance
and its reality, so interlaced that he had long since ceased to ask
what was real and what unreal. All was unreal in the sense of being of
more than worldly consequence in his estimation, and all real as a part
of the training of his whole life.
To him Lichfield Cathedral was no mere pile of sculptured stone, built
round with the facts of recorded history; it was the fairy handiwork
of times and scenes long past, its walls raised by the hand of pious
enthusiasm, shattered and cemented by the strife and blood of the civil
war, hallowed by the returning glory of the Restoration, blessed by the
favor of royal presence, and now made admirable in his daily sight by
the dignity and grace of those holy men its dean and chapter.
As it was the cathedral I had come to see, and as I had come for no
architect's measurements, for no student's lore, only to bathe in the
charmed atmosphere of its storied past, I had fallen upon a guide
after my own heart, and it was as pleasant as it was easy to lend full
credence to all he so honestly believed and told.
In early life he had had gentler training, but he had long been a Poor
Brother of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist in Lichfield, and had,
for many years, held, by seniority, the right of presenting a rose, on
St. John's nativity day, to the heirs of William Juvenis (goldsmith),
who, by grants made in consideration of this ceremony, had secured
perennial prayers for the souls of his ancestors and a fragrant memory
for his own.
Hedged about by the traditionary customs and quaint observances of an
ancient charitable foundation, deadened in a way, if you please, by the
aristocratic pauperism of his condition, my gentle companion had grown
to his present dreamy estate.
As we reached Stow Pool, near the old parish church of St. Chad, he
pointed out the spring of pure water where, twelve hundred years ago,
this future Bishop of Lichfield--who during his hermit life supported
himself on the milk of a doe--was wont to pray naked in the water,
standing upon the stone still seen at the bottom of the well, and where
St. Ovin heard the angels sing as his good soul passed away.
Then, with the trusting look of a little child, the Poor Brother went
on to tell of the virtues and good deeds of this holy life;--how
even the King of the Mercians, struck with remorse for the crimes he
had committed, visited the saint in person, yielded to his eloquent
persuasion, became a convert to the true faith, and banished all
idolatry from his realm; how he became the head of the church of
Lichfield and laid its strong foundations of piety and faith; and how
his virtues so outlived him that his very tomb swallowed the ill-humors
of diseased minds resorting to its serene presence, that the dust
from his grave healed all ills of man and beast, and that the shrine
built in his honor after his canonization was so sought by numberless
devotees that Lichfield itself began thereupon to increase and flourish.
To our left, as he ceased, the evening's lingering glow gilded the
silent pool, where lay the unrippled reflection of the three spires of
the cathedral, hardly more unsubstantial than the fairy silhouette that
stood clean-cut against the sky, and dividing with the reality the rapt
admiration of the Poor Brother of St. John's.
We stood by the water's edge, and he turned toward the phantom spires
reversed within it, his talk wandering back to the days of the church's
troubles,--when the cathedral close was a fortress, with strong walls
and well-filled moat; when the beautiful west gate, which only our
own age was vile enough to destroy, kept stout ward against the outer
world, and protected the favored community who formed within the walls
a county independent of Lichfield and of Staffordshire. Within the
sacred pale no law had force save that of the Ecclesiastical Court, and
then, as now, none could there be taken for debt or crime save on the
warrant of the dean and chapter.
He knew by heart the long list of bishops, and would gladly have held
me to hear of the good deeds of Langton and Hackett. He was fairly
launched in his favorite enthusiasm, and told warmly the more striking
features of the church's history, but he told them rapidly lest I
should reach the storied pile with less than a full appreciation of its
traditional interest.
From his nervous lips I learned how King Richard II. kept Christmas
revels here with a splendor that lavished two hundred tuns of wine,
and roasted two thousand oxen, whose bones are still found in Oxenbury
field hard by; how Elizabeth passed three whole days in the close; and
how the solidity of its fortification, the consummate grace and finish
of its architecture, the richness of its sculpture, and the surpassing
beauty and magnificence of the nine windows of its lady chapel marked
it as the crowning glory of the Western Church, until the dark days
of the Revolution lowered. Then its sore trials were recounted, and
I learned of the fanatical attack of Lord Brooke, "with his horde of
impious Roundheads," made by strange fatality on St. Chad's day; of the
shooting of Lord Brooke by "Dumb Dyott," who was perched in the steeple
with a fowling-piece that now hangs over the fireplace of Colonel
Dyott's house; of the surrender of the close by Lord Chesterfield; of
the sack and bout that followed; of the recapture by Prince Rupert.
He told of the foul desecration by the Roundheads, who used every
species of havoc, plunder, and profanation,--pulling down the sacred
effigies which were the glory of the western front, hacking to pieces
the curious carvings of the choir, mashing the noses of the monumental
statues, destroying the valuable evidences and records of the church
and the city, shattering the glass of the costly windows,--save only
that of the marvellous nine of the lady chapel, which a pious care was
said to have removed to a place of safety. They kept courts of guard in
the cross aisles, broke up the pavements, and every day hunted a cat
with hounds throughout the church, delighting in the echoes from the
vaulted roof; they wrapped a calf in linen, and "in derision and scorn
of the sacrament of baptism," sprinkled it at the font and gave it a
name.
How the King, after the defeat of Naseby, came from Ashby-de-la-Zouche,
and passed the night in the close,--how Cromwell's defaming crew
completed the work of demolition and desecration, and smashed the old
bell called "Jesus," with its legend "I am the bell of Jesus, and
Edward is our King; Sir Thomas Heywood first causéd me to ring,"--how,
finally, the chapter-house alone had a roof under which service might
be said,--how the good Hackett on the first day of his bishopric set
his own servants and his own coach-horses at work removing the rubbish,
and never tired until in eight years' time the magnificence of the
cathedral was restored, except for the forever irreparable loss of the
decorations, and especially of the lady chapel windows, which all the
cost of the restoration would not have sufficed to renew,--how the
church was reconsecrated with great pomp and solemnity,--all this he
told me in detail, and he would gladly have told more, for this Poor
Brother had made these few rich historic acres nearly his whole world,
and had peopled it with all who throughout the long ages had marred it
or had made it. To have given "two good trees" for the rebuilding of
the church was a title to his lasting and grateful recognition.
But the light was fast waning, and the cathedral must be seen now or
perhaps never. It was already past the hour for closing, but one of
the vergers had formerly been a Poor Brother of St. John's, and my
companion went to him to secure our admission.
I stood before the west front of the cathedral, which was then bathed
in the lingering light of the after-day, its great central window
gleaming as though the altar lamps were still burning behind it, and
the western spires almost losing themselves in the sky. The quaint
effigies that fill the niches across the whole façade lost their
grotesqueness in the dusk, and seemed really the sacred sculptures they
were meant to be. Fair though this rich front must be at high midday,
it needs for its full beauty the half-light of a Northern evening. As
seen on that rarest of all evenings, it was a fit introduction to the
subdued glory which greeted us in the dim religious light to which we
entered as the great central door closed behind us.
We stood, uncovered and reverent, beneath the vaulted nave, looking
down the long curved aisle, bordered by the majesty of the clustered
columns, through the light illuminated screen of the choir, full upon
the sculptured and gem-set alabaster reredos, above and beyond which
stood the famed group of windows of the lady chapel, mellowed by the
light of the streaming full moon.