after the escape of julius roscoe time held to a tranquil pace in the placidities of the storm centre. the rose-red dawns burst into bloom and the days flowered whitely, full of fragrance and singing birds, of loitering sunshine and light-winged breezes. one by one the still noons glowed and glistered, expanding into summer radiance, and dulled gradually to the mellow splendors of the sunset. then fell the serene dusk, blue on the far-away mountains, violet nearer at hand, with a white star in the sky, and a bugle's strain leaping into the air like a thing of life, a vivified sound. and all the panorama of troops, and forts, and camps, and cannon might be some magnificent military spectacle, so remote seemed the war—so unreal. every morning the "ladies" wrought at their lessons in the library, and leonora cut their small summer garments and helped the seamstress, who came in by the day, to sew. despite these absorptions mrs. gwynn managed to find leisure to read aloud to judge roscoe his favorite old novels, and essays, and dull antiquated histories. she evolved subjects of controversy on which to argue with him, and was facetious and found[pg 273] occasion to call him "your honour" oftener than heretofore. for he had grown old suddenly; his step had lost its elasticity; he looked up a cane that had once been presented to him by some fraternity; his hair was turning white and—worst sign of all—he was not sorry to be approaching the end.
"the night is long, and the day is a burden," he once said.
then, when she reminded him of duty, he recanted. but he had obviously fallen into that indifference to life incident to advancing age, and was sensible of a not involuntary gravitation toward the tomb. later he asked her if she did not think those lines of stephen hawes's had a most mellow and languorous cadence,—
"for though the day appear ever so long,
at last the bell ringeth to even-song."
he showed great anxiety concerning captain baynell's recovery, but he had never mentioned to her the fact of julius's presence in the house. she knew that he and probably old ephraim had been aware of it, but this was only a constructive knowledge on her part, and founded on no assurance. when once more baynell was able to come downstairs, she perceived that he himself had no remote consciousness of his assailant. he had entirely accepted the theory of a fall instead of a collision, and was only a little deprecatory and embarrassed at being so long in getting himself away.
[pg 274]"positively my last appearance!" he was reduced even to the hackneyed phrase.
mrs. gwynn made the conventional polite protest, and the "ladies" joyously and affectionately flocked around him, and his heart expanded to the grave kindness of his host. nevertheless he appreciated a subtle change. despite the enhancing charm of the season, which even a few days had wrought to a deeper perfection, the place had somehow fallen under a tinge of gloom. but the roses were blooming at the windows, the lilies stood in ranks, tall and stately, in the borders, the humming-birds were rioting all day in the honeysuckle vines over the rear galleries and the side porch, the breeze swept back and forth through the dim, perfumed, wide spaces of the house, which seemed expanded, with all the doors open. sometimes he attributed the change to the tempered light, for all the trees were in full leaf, and the deeply umbrageous boughs transmitted scarce a beam to the windows, once so sunny; much of the time, too, the shutters were partially closed. and though the children flitted about like little fairies, in their thin white dresses, and mrs. gwynn, garbed, too, in white, seemed, with her floating draperies, in the transparent green twilight, like some ethereal dream of youth and beauty, there was a pervasive sense of despondency, of domestic discomfort, of impending disaster. sometimes he attributed the change to one or[pg 275] two untoward chances, a revelation of the real character of war that happened to be presented to the observation of the household. the "ladies" came clamoring in one day, all wide-eyed and half distraught. with that relish of horror characteristic of ignorance, a negro woman, a visitor of aunt chaney's, had detailed to them the sentence of a soldier to be shot for some military crime—shot, as he knelt on his own coffin. presently they heard the music of the band playing a funeral march along the turnpike as the poor wretch was taken out with a detail from the city limits; then, only the drum, a terrible sound, a dull, muffled thud, at intervals, that barely timed the marching footfall, while the victim was in the midst! and still the vibration of the mournful drum, seeking out every responsive nerve of terror within the shuddering children!
their painful, tearless cries, their clinging hands, their frantic appeals for help for the doomed creature—would no one help him!—were most pathetic.
and though leonora could shut the windows and gravely explain, then tell a story and divert the moment,—they were so young, so plastic, so trustful,—no ingenuity could find a satisfactory method to account for the anti-climax of the tragedy, when within the hour came the same detail, marching briskly back along the turnpike, with fife and drum playing a waggish tune. the[pg 276] wide, daunted eyes of the children, their paling cheeks, their breathless silence, annotated the lesson in brutality, in the essential heartlessness of the world, except for the tutored graces of a cultivated philanthropy. for a long time one or the other would wake in the night to cry out that she heard the muffled drum,—they were taking the man out to shoot him, kneeling on his coffin,—and again and again would come the plaintive query, "and is nobody, nobody sorry?"
the incident passed with the events of the crowded time, but even within the domestic periphery harmony had ceased to reign as of yore. old ephraim was a bit sullen, gloomy, did his work with an ill grace, and repudiated all acquaintance with "brer rabbit" and "brer fox." the soldiers in the neighboring camps—possibly to secure an influence, his alienation from the interest of his quasi-owner, in order to ferret out more of the mystery concerning the confederate officer, possibly only animated by political fervor, and it may be with a spice of mischief, finding amusement in the old negro's garrulous grotesqueries—had been talking to him of slavery, making the most of his grievances, setting them in order before him, and urging him to rouse himself to the great opportunities of freedom.
"i done make up my mind," he said autocratically, one day in the kitchen. "i gwine realize on my forty acres an' a muel!"
[pg 277]for this substantial bonanza freedom was supposed to confer on each ex-slave.
"forty acres an' a mule!" the old cook echoed in derisive incredulity and with a scornful black face. "you done realize on de mule—a mule is whut you is, sure! here's yer mule! an' now you go out an' fotch me a pail of water, else i'll make ye realize on enough good land ter kiver ye! dat's whut! it'll be six feet—not forty acres,—but it kin do yer job!"
he might have made a fractious politician but for this adverse influence, for he had the variant moods of a mercurial nature, and in gloom showed a morose perversity that could have been easily manipulated into a spurious sense of martyrdom, lacking a tutored ratiocination to enable him to discriminate the facts. but despite his failings, his ignorance, the bewildering changes in his surroundings, never a word concerning his young master escaped his lips, never an inadvertent allusion, a disastrous whisper. he scarcely allowed himself a thought, a speculation.
"fust thing i know," he reflected warily, "i'll be talkin' ter myself. they always tole me dat walls had ears!"
a day or two of murky weather seemed to penetrate the mental atmosphere as well. it was perhaps the inauguration of the chill interval known as "blackberry winter." everywhere the great brambles were snowy with bloom, and in[pg 278] the house the "ladies" shivered and clasped their cold elbows in the sleeves of their thin summer dresses till the fenders and fire-dogs were brought out once more, and the flicker of hearthstone flames made cheery the aspect of the library, and dispensed a genial warmth. the air was moist; the trains ran with a dull roar and an undertone of reverberation; there was a collision of boats in the fog on the river, involving loss of life, and one night, the window being up, the sentry in passing called captain baynell out on the portico. he said he hesitated to summon the corporal of the guard, lest the sound should pass before the non-commissioned officer could come.
"what sound?" asked baynell.
"listen, sir," said the sentry.
the night was dark. there was no moon. the stars now and then glimmering through the mists afforded scant illumination to the earth. the fires of the troops in bivouac about the town shone like thousands of constellations, reflected by the earth. the wind was surging fitfully among the pines. there was a dull iterative beat, rather felt than heard.
"the train?" suggested baynell.
"the train is in, sir."
"must have been a freight," baynell hazarded, for the indefinite vibration had ceased.
"that's 'hep, hep, hep,'—that's marching feet, sir,—that's what it is!"
"well, what of that?" baynell demanded.[pg 279] "it's the corporal of the guard going out with the relief."
"it's too early——"
"grand rounds, possibly."
"it's too near," objected the man. "it's very near."
the wind struck their faces with a dank fillip of dew. the vine hard by was dripping; they could hear the drops fall, and a silent interval, and again a falling drop.
"there is nothing now," said baynell. "it was doubtless some patrol. the air is very moist, and sounds are heavier than usual."
"this seemed to me very near, sir," said the soldier, discontentedly. he wished he had fired his piece and called for the corporal of the guard. he had hesitated, for the corporal had scant patience with a military zealot who was forever discovering causes of alarm without foundation, and this exercise of judgment was a strain on a soldier's sense of duty. he had expected the captain to respond to the mere suggestion of a secret approach, remembering the search for the hidden rebel officer. but baynell had never heard of that episode!
suddenly all the camps broke into a turbulence of sound. a hundred drums were beating the tattoo. from down the valley and over the river the bugle iterated the strain. near the town and along the hills it was duplicated anew, and all the echoes of the crags and the rocks[pg 280] of the river bank repeated it, and called out the mandate, and sang it again in a different key; at last it died into a fitful repetition; silence once more; an absolute hush.
a rocket went up from the fort hard by; another rose, starlike and stately, from unseen regions beyond a hill. presently the lights were dying out like magic all along the encampments, as if some great cataclysm were among the stellular reflections, blotting them from the sphere of being. the constellations above glowed more brightly as the earth darkened. the wind was gathering force. baynell listened as the boughs clashed and surged together.
"you doubtless heard the patrol," he said. and again—"the air is dank."
then he turned and went within; the soldier marched back and forth, as he was destined to do for some time yet, and listened with all the keen intentness of which he was capable. and heard nothing.
the next morning—it was still before dawn—a sudden sharp clamor rose from a redoubt within which was a powder magazine near the main works, lying on the hither side of the river. the mischief which the earlier sentinel at the roscoe place anticipated had come; how, whence,—the man now on duty hardly knew. he fired his rifle and called for the guard. then a few sharp reports, and a tumult of shouting sounded from the redoubt. a general alarm[pg 281] ensued. the drums were beating the long roll in the infantry camps,—a nerve-thrilling, terrifying vibration; and the sharp cry, "fall in!—fall in!" was like an incident of the keen, rare, matutinal air, the iterative command sounding like an echo from every quarter in which the lines of tents were beginning to glimmer dimly. from where the cavalry horses were picketed in long rows came the clash of accoutrements and the tramp of hoofs as the trumpets sang "boots and saddles!" once a courier—a shadowy, mounted figure, half distinguishable in the gray obscurity, seeming gigantic, like some horseman of a fable—dashed past in the gloom, going or coming none could know whither. the clamors increased, the shots multiplied, then the clear, chill light came gradually over the turmoils of darkness and sudden surprise. the first rays of the sun struck upon the confederate flag flying from the redoubt, and its paroled garrison were trooping across to the main line of fortifications, bearing the miraculous story that they had awakened to find the work full of confederate soldiers who seemed to have mined their way into the place from some subterranean access, and who were now in the name of julius roscoe, their ranking officer, demanding the surrender of the fort which the redoubt overlooked.
the federal commander would have shelled them out of their precarious advantage with very hearty good-will, but he feared for the stores of[pg 282] powder, which he really could not spare. moreover, the explosion of the magazine at such close quarters could but result in the total demolition of the main work and its valuable armament, inflicting also great destruction of life. thus, although the burly and experienced warrior, colonel deltz, was fairly rampant with indignation at the insignificance of this bold enemy both in point of the subordinate rank of the leader and the small number of the force, he was fain to hold parley, instead of opening fire upon the redoubt at once and wiping the raiders, with one hand, as it were, from the face of the earth. it may be doubted if any capable and trusted military expert ever discharged a more distasteful duty. nevertheless, it was performed secundum artem, with every show of those amenities which of all professional courtesies have the slightest root in truth and real feeling. he invited the surrender of the redoubt, ignoring the demand for the surrender of the fort as a puerile and impudent folly, offering the usual fine and humane suggestions touching the avoidance of the useless effusion of blood, such as often before have been heard when a sophistry must needs fill the breach in lieu of force. when this was declined, julius roscoe was reminded, in the most cautious terms, of the personal jeopardy incurred by a commander who undertakes to hold out an untenable position. julius roscoe's reply, couched in the same strain of courteous phraseology, such, indeed, as might[pg 283] have been employed by a general of division, deliberating on articles of capitulation involving the well-being of an army, intimated that he was popularly supposed to be able to take care of himself; that so far from being unprepared to hold the redoubt which he had captured, he had means at his disposal to possess himself of the fort itself, and if its garrison would but await his onset, he should be happy to entertain colonel deltz in his own quarters at dinner in a campaigner's simple way—say, at one of the clock.
these covert allusions to the signal advantages of his situation showed that lieutenant roscoe was fully apprized of the very large quantity of ammunition stored in the magazine, and the tone of his rejoinder intimated that he would avail himself to the uttermost of its efficiency. the works were close enough to render visible the occupations of the confederates. though gaunt and half-starved, many ragged and barefoot, they were as merry as grigs and as industrious as beavers, destroying such federal stores as they could not remove, spiking or otherwise disabling the ordnance that they could not use,—the heavy howitzers at the embrasures,—and briskly preparing to serve the barbette battery, that they had shifted to command the fort and a line of intrenchments taken at a grievous disadvantage in the rear, and some lighter swivel artillery that could sweep all the horizon within range.
it was a sight to stir the gorge of a professed[pg 284] soldier and a martinet. if aught of action could have availed, the colonel would have welcomed a fierce and summary devoir. but the true soldier rarely allows personal antagonism or a sentimental theory to influence the line of conduct to which duty and prudence alike point. he swallowed his fury, and it was a great gulp for a heady and choleric man who had lived by burning gunpowder—lo, these many years. he perceived that his garrison, able to descry the antics of the confederates in the redoubt, were apprized of their own imminent peril from the magazine in the hands of their enemy—now, practically a mine. there was a doubt among his observant officers as to whether the reckless band were taking any of the usual precautions, requisite in dealing with so extensive a store of explosives, as they joyfully loaded the cannon. under these circumstances, attack being out of the question, colonel deltz could hardly be assured of the efficiency of his force in defence. his garrison were palsied by surprise, the mysterious appearance of the confederates, and the impunity of their situation. they could only be shelled out of the redoubt by the jeopardy of the powder magazine itself, and its explosion would destroy the lives of the besiegers as well as the besieged. hence strategy was requisite. the fort was gradually evacuated as a lure to draw the raiders into the main works, where they could be dealt with, thus quitting their post of advantage.
[pg 285]later in the day from a knob called sugar loaf pinnacle an artillery fire opened, the shells falling at first at uncertain intervals, seeking to ascertain the range; then, in fast and furious succession, hurtling down upon the guns of the masked battery beside the river. the missiles seemed but tiny clouds of white smoke, each with a heart of fire, the fuse redly burning against the densely blue sky, till dropping elastically to the moment of explosion it was resolved into a fiercely white focus with rayonnant fibres and stunning clamors.
the town itself was hardly in danger during this riverside bombardment, unless, indeed, from some accident of defective marksmanship. but with all the world gone mad, the atmosphere itself a field of pyrotechnic magnificence, the familiar old mountains but a background to display the curves a flying shell might describe, now and again bursting in mid-air ere it reached its billet, the non-combatant populace was panic-stricken. streets were deserted. all ordinary vocations ceased. the more substantial buildings of brick or stone were crowded, their walls presumed to be capable of resisting at least the spent balls, wide of aim, for these were often endowed with such a residue of energy as still to be destructive. cellars were in request, and while the darkness precluded the terrifying glare of the bursting projectiles, nevertheless the tremendous clamor of the detonation, the[pg 286] wild reverberations of the echoes, the shouts of cheering men, the sound of bugles and drums and of voices in command in the distance, gave intimations of what was going forward, and uncertainty perhaps enhanced fear.
"dar, now, de yankee man's battery is done gone too!" exclaimed uncle ephraim, as the voice of authority rang out sharply, with all its echo-like variants in the subalterns' commands. the clangor of accoutrements, the heavy but swift roll of the wheels of gun-carriages and caissons, the tumultuous hoof-beats of horses at full gallop, the spirited cheering of the artillerymen, filled the air—and then silence ensued, deep and dark, the stone walls of the cellar vaguely glimmering with one candle set on the head of a barrel.
"he's gone wid 'em,—dat man! time dat bugle blow he tore dat bandage off his haid—nicked or no,—dat he did!"
uncle ephraim was seated on an inverted cotton basket, and aunt chaney, with the three "ladies" clustered about her knees, sat on the flight of steps that led down from a cautiously closed door. the "ladies" kept their fingers in their ears as a protection against sound, but the deaf-mute, strangely enough, was the most acute to discern the crash, possibly by reason of the vibrations of the air, since she could not hear the detonation of the shells.
somehow the sturdy courage of that soldierly shout was reassuring.
[pg 287]"dere ain't no danger, ladies," declared aunt chaney. then, "oh, my king!" she cried in an altered voice, while the three "ladies" hid their faces in the folds of her apron as a terrific explosion took place in mid-air, the pieces of the shell falling burning in the grove.
"jus' lissen at dat owdacious julius!" muttered uncle ephraim, indignantly. "i never 'lowed he war gwine ter kick up sech a tarrifyin' commotion as dis yere, nohow."
"i wish gran'pa would come down here," whined one of the twins.
"where the cannon-balls can't catch him," whimpered the other.
"what you talking about, ladies?" demanded the old cook, rising to the occasion. "you 'spec' a gemman lak yer gran'pa gwine sit in de cellar, lak—lak a 'tater!"—the simile suggested by a bushel-basket half full of irish potatoes for late planting in the "garden spot."
the "ladies," reassured by the joke, laughed shrilly, a little off the key, and clung to her comfortable fat arm that so inspired their confidence.
"i gwine sit in de cellar tell i sprout lak a 'tater, ef disher tribulation ain't ober 'twell den," declared uncle ephraim. "dar now! lissen ter dat!" as once more the clamorous air broke forth with sound.
the "ladies" exclaimed in piteous accents.
"dat ain't nuffin ter hurt, honey," aunt chaney reassured her trembling charges. "dese triflin'[pg 288] sodjers ain't got much aim. yer gran'pa an' yer cousin leonora wouldn't stay up dere in de lawbrary ef dere was destruction comin'."
"then why do you come in the cellar?" asked the logical adelaide.
"jes' ter git shet o' de terror ob seein' it, honey!" replied aunt chaney. "i ain't no perfessor ob war, nohow, an' my eyes ain't practised ter shellin' an' big shootin'."
"me, neither," said adelaide.
"nor me," whimpered geraldine.
"de cannon-balls ain't gwine kill us, dough. we gwine live a long time," aunt chaney optimistically protested. "i ain't s'prised none ef when de war is ober an' we tell 'bout dis fight, we gwine make out dat when de shellin' wuz at de wust, you three ladies an' me jus' stood up on de highest aidge ob de rampart ob de fort, an' 'structed de men how ter fire de cannon, an' p'inted out de shells flyin' through de air wid dat ar actial little forefinger, an' kep' up de courage ob de troops."
"on which side, aunt chaney?" asked adelaide, the reasonable.
"on bofe sides, honey," said aunt chaney, "'cordin' ter de politics ob dem we is talkin' to!"
a rat whisked over the floor, across the dim slant of light that fell from the candle on the head of the barrel. uncle ephraim, his elbows on his knees, his gray head slightly canted in a[pg 289] listening attitude, smiled vaguely, pleased like a child himself with aunt chaney's sketch.
"oh, aunt chaney!—do you s'pose we'll tell it that way?" cried adelaide, meditating on the flattering contrast.
"dat's de ve'y way de tales 'bout dis war is gwine be tole, honey, you mark my words," declared the prophetess.
the contrast of the imaginative future account with the troublous actuality of the present so delighted adelaide that she spelled it off on her fingers to lucille, both repairing to the side of the barrel where the candle was glimmering, in order to have the light on their twinkling fingers in the manual alphabet. the humors of the expectation, the incongruity of their martial efficiency, the boastful resources of the future, elicited bursts of delighted gigglings, and when the next shell exploded, neither took notice of the hurtling bomb shrieking over the house and bound for the river.
the rest of the populace were enjoying no such solace from any waggish interpretation of the future. the present, that single momentous day, was for them as much of time as they cared to contemplate. doubtless the satisfaction was very general among the citizens, regardless of political prepossessions, when it became known that captain baynell with a detachment of horse artillery had gone out and taken up a position that had enabled him at last to silence the[pg 290] confederate guns on the pinnacle, not, however, before the masked battery by the river was practically dismounted.
now both infantry and cavalry were ordered out in an effort to intercept the venturesome rebel artillerymen as they sought to descend from their steep pinnacle of rock. the dust on the turnpike, redly aflare in the sunset rays, betokened the progress of the march, and now and then it was harassed by shells and grape from the swivel guns of the fort, for roscoe's limited command had not been able to bring the heavier ordnance of the embrasures to bear upon the camps around the town.
the whole community was in a panic, for this might soon betide. but a gunboat came, as it chanced, up the river, took a position of advantage, and with great precision of aim soon shelled the little force out of the main work. their capture was momently expected, but they made good their retreat to their former position in the redoubt, with the intention unquestionably of escaping thence by the secret passage which had afforded them access. in leaving, however, the powder magazine was blown up by accident or design, destroying the integrity of the whole fortification, and shattering nearly every pane of glass in the town, the force of the concussion indeed bringing the tower of the hospital hard by to the ground. that the raiders had perished was not doubted, till news came of[pg 291] a sharp skirmish which took place under cover of darkness at the mouth of a sort of grotto in judge roscoe's grove, and in the confusion, surprise, and obscurity all escaped save some half-dozen left dead upon the ground.
