IN WHICH A LONG JUMP IS TAKEN
It is not proposed to attempt any relation of that part of the lives
of the people in this record which was covered by the four years of
war. That period was too tremendous to be made a mere fragment of any
history. “After that the deluge.”
What pen could properly tell the story of those four years; what
fittingly record the glory of that struggle, hopeless from the
beginning, yet ever appearing to pluck success from the very abyss of
impossibility, and by the sheer power of unconquerable valor to reverse
the laws of nature and create the consummation it desired, in the face
of insuperable force?
It was a great formative force in every life that participated in it.
It stamped itself on every face. The whole country emptied itself into
it. They went into it boys, and came out of it men—striplings, and
came out of it heroes. But the eye once fastened on that flaming fire
would be blinded for any lesser light.
It is what took place after the war rather than what occurred during
the struggle that this chronicle is concerned with.
If the part that the men played in the war must be passed over in
silence as too large for this history, how much more impossible would
it be to describe fitly the part that the women performed. It was a
harder part to fill, yet they filled it to the brim, good measure,
overflowing. It is no disparagement to the men to say that whatever
courage they displayed, it was less than that which the women showed.
Wherever a Southern woman stood during those four years, there in her
small person was a garrison of the South, impregnable.
Year after year the mills of war ground steadily array after array, and
crushed province after province, and still the ranks filled and poured
with intrepid daring into the abyss of destruction, to be ground like
their predecessors to dust; until at the end there was nothing left to
grind. Some day the historian, annalist or novelist, may arise to tell
the mighty story, but meantime this pen must pass it by as too great a
theme, and deal with the times that come after.
One or two incidents, however, must be mentioned to fill the break and
explain what came afterward.
Colonel Gray, who had been early promoted, fell at the head of his
regiment on one of those great days which are the milestones of history.
His body was brought home and buried in the old grave-yard at Red
Rock among generations of Grays, of whom, as old Mr. Langstaff, who
had been bodily haled back to his parish by his congregation, said to
the neighbors and servants about the grave, not one was a better or a
braver man, or a truer gentleman. Colonel Gray’s burial marked one of
the steps of the war in that retired neighborhood.
When it was all over, and the neighbors had gone home, and the servants
had retired to their quarters, hushed to that vague quietude that
follows the last putting away in the earth of those who have been near
to us, Jacquelin came out of the office where he had held that last
interview with his father, and walked into his mother’s room. His
shoulders were square and his figure erect. Mrs. Gray rose from her
knees as he entered, and stood before him in her black dress, her face
deadly white; her eyes, full of fear, fastened on his face.
“Mamma—.” He stopped as if that were all he had to say, and, perhaps,
it was; for Mrs. Gray seated herself calmly.
“Yes, my son.” The fine, sad eyes grew wistful. How like he was to his
father!
—“Because, you know, there ought to be one of us in the old company,
mamma,” he said, quite as though he had spoken the other sentence.
“Yes, my son, I know.” And the mother sighed, her heart breaking in
spite of her resolve to be brave.
“—And I am the only man of the name now—and I am fifteen and a whole
head taller than Andy Stamper.”
“Yes, I know, my son.” She had noticed it that day, and had known this
would come.
“And he is one of the best soldiers in the army—_He_ said so. And
if—if anything happens, you have Rupert.” He went on arguing, as
though his mother had not agreed with him.
“Yes, my son, I know.” And Mrs. Gray rose suddenly and flung herself
into his arms and hugged him and clung to him, and wept on his
shoulder, as though he were his father.
So the change comes: the boy in little trousers suddenly stands before
the mother a man; the little girl who was in her pinafores yesterday,
to-day has stepped into full-blown womanhood; and the children have
gone; the old has passed; and the new is here.
General Legaie offered to make a place on his staff for Jacquelin; but
Jacquelin declined it. He wished to go into the Red Rock troop, of
which Steve Allen was now Captain.
“Because, mamma, all the men are in it, and Steve has refused a
majority to stay with them, and there must be one of the Grays in the
old company,” he said with a rise of his head.
Doan, of course, expected to go with his master; but Mrs. Gray vetoed
this; she was afraid Doan might be killed: young men were so rash. She
remembered that Doan was his mother’s only son. So, by a compromise,
Old Waverley was sent. He had so much judgment, she said.
The year after Jacquelin went away to the army the tide of war rolled
nearer to the old county, and the next year, that which had been deemed
impossible befell: it swept over it.
When the invading army had passed, the county was scarcely recognizable.
Jacquelin’s career in the army was only that of many others—indeed, of
many thousands of others: he went in a boy, but a boy who could ride
any horse, and all day and all night; sleep on stones or in mud; and if
told to go anywhere, would go as firmly and as surely among bayonets or
belching guns as if it were in a garden of roses.
Being the youngest man in his company, he might naturally have been a
favorite in any case; but when he was always ready to stand an extra
tour of guard-duty, or to do anything else for a comrade, it placed
his popularity beyond question. They used to call him “The baby;” but
after a sharp cavalry fight on a hill-top one afternoon they stopped
this. Legaie’s brigade charged, and finding infantry entrenched, were
retiring amid smoke and dust and bullets, when Jacquelin, missing
Morris Cary, who had been near him but a moment before, suddenly turned
and galloped back through the smoke. Two or three men shouted and
stopped, and Steve suddenly dashed back after the boy, followed by Andy
Stamper and the whole company. There was a rally with the whole Red
Rock troop in the lead, Steve Allen, with little Andy Stamper close
behind, shouting and sabering like mad, which changed the fortune of
the day.
Poor Morris was found under his horse, past help; but they brought
his body out of the fray, and Jacquelin sent him home, with a letter
which was harder to write than any charge he had ever made or was to
make—harder even than to tell Dr. Cary, who was at the field hospital
and who received the announcement with only a sudden tightening of the
mouth and whitening of the face. After that, Andy Stamper “allowed that
Jacquelin’s cradle was big enough for him” (Andy), which it certainly
was, by linear measurement, at least.
Blair’s letter to Jacquelin in reply was more to him than General
Legaie’s mention of his name in his report.
Blair was growing up to be almost a woman now. Women, as well as men,
age rapidly amid battles, and nearly every letter Jacquelin received
from home contained something about her. “What a pretty girl Blair
has grown to be. You have no idea how we all lean on her,” his mother
wrote. Or Miss Thomasia would say: “I wish you could have heard Blair
sing in church last Sunday. Her voice has developed unspeakable
sweetness. It reminded me of her grandmother, when I can first remember
her.”
It was not a great while after this that Jacquelin himself went down
one day, and had to be fought over, and though he fared better than
poor Morris Cary, in that the bullet which brought him down only
smashed his leg instead of finding his heart, it resulted in Steve
getting both himself and his horse shot, and Jacquelin being left in
the enemy’s hands, along with Andy Stamper, who had fought over him,
like the game little bantam that he was, until a big Irish Sergeant
knocked him in the head with a carbine-barrel and came near ending the
line of the Stampers then and there. Happily, Andy came to after a
while, and was taken along with Jacquelin and sent to Point Lookout.
Jacquelin and Andy stayed in prison a long time; Andy because he was
a hardy and untamed little warrior, of the kind which was drawn last
for exchange; and Jacquelin partly because he was unable to travel on
account of his wound and partly because he would not accept an exchange
to leave Andy.
One day, however, Andy got a letter which seriously affected him. It
told him that Delia Dove was said to be going to marry Mr. Still.
Within a week little Andy, whose constitution had hitherto appeared of
iron, was in the hospital. The doctor told Jacquelin that he thought
he was seriously ill, and might die.
That night Jacquelin scribbled a line to Andy and persuaded a nurse,
Miss Bush, a small woman with thin hair, a sharp nose and a complaining
voice, but gentle eyes and a kind heart, to get it to him. It ran:
“Hold on for Delia’s sake. We’ll get exchanged before long.”
“Who is Delia?” asked the nurse, looking at the paper doubtfully. It
was against orders to carry notes.
“His sweetheart.”
The nurse took the note.
In a week Andy was ready to be out of the hospital.
The next morning Jacquelin and the doctor had a long talk, and later
on, Jacquelin and the nurse; and when the next draft for exchange came,
the name of Jacquelin Gray was on it. But Andy Stamper’s was not. So
the nurse told Jacquelin. Another note was written and conveyed by Miss
Bush, and that evening, when the line of prisoners for exchange marched
out of the prison yard, Andy Stamper, with his old blanket pulled
up around his face and a crutch under his arm, was in it. Jacquelin
was watching from a corner of the hospital window while the line was
inspected. Andy answered the questions all right—Private in Company A,
—th Cavalry; captured at ——; wounded in leg; and just left hospital.
As the last guard filed out behind the ragged line and the big gate
swung to, Jacquelin hobbled back to his cot and lay with his face to
the wall. The nurse came by presently and stopping, looked down at him.
“Now you’ve gone and ruined your chance for ever,” she said in the
querulous tone habitual with her.
Jacquelin shut his eyes tightly, then opened them and without a word
gazed straight at the wall not a foot before him. Suddenly the woman
bent close down over him and kissed him.
“You are a dear boy.” The next instant she went back to her duty.
An effort was made to get an exchange for Jacquelin, the principal
agents being a nurse in the prison-hospital and a philanthropical
friend of hers, a Mrs. Welch, through whom the nurse had secured her
position; but the answer was conclusive:
“Jacquelin Gray has already been exchanged.”
As for Andy, when he reached home he found the report about Miss Delia
Dove to be at least premature. It was not only Mr. Washington Still,
but Hiram as well, who was unpleasantly attentive to her, and Miss
Delia, after the first burst of genuine delight at Andy’s unexpected
appearance, proceeded to use the prerogative of her sex and wring
her lover’s heart by pretending to be pleased by his new rival’s
attentions. Andy, accordingly, did not stay long at home, but accepting
the renewed proffer of a loan from Hiram Still to buy a horse, was soon
back with the old company, sadly wasted by this time and only kept up
by the new recruits, on whom Andy looked with disdain.
When Wash Still was drafted from the dispensary department of the
hospital service it was some consolation that he was at least banished
from dangerous proximity to Miss Delia, but it was hard to have to
accept him as a comrade, and Andy’s sunburned nose was always turned up
when Wash was around.
“Washy Still in place of Jacquelin Gray,” he sniffed; “a dinged little
’pothecary-shop sweeper for a boy as didn’t mind bullets no mo’ than
flies. I bet he’s got pills in that pistol now! And he to be a-settin’
up to Delia Dove!”
However, a few months later Andy had his reward.
So it happened, that when the end came, Andy was back with the old
company, and Jacquelin was still in prison.