CHAPTER XV. LILLIE BIDS GOOD-BYE TO THE LOVER WHOM SHE HAS CHOSEN, AND TO THE LOVER WHOM SHE WOULD NOT CHOOSE.
Lillie left Mrs. Larue early, without a word as to the great event which had just changed the world for her, and retired to her own house and her own room. She was in a state of being, half stunned, half ecstatic; every faculty seemed to be suspended, except so far as it was electrified to action by one idea; she sat by the window with folded hands, motionless, seeing and hearing only through her memory; she sought to recollect him as he was when he took her hand and kissed it; she called to mind all that he had said and looked and done. She could not tell whether she had been thus occupied five minutes or half an hour, when she heard the tinkle of the door-bell, followed by her father's entrance. Then suddenly a great terror and sense of guilt fell upon her spirit. From the moment when that confession of love had been uttered down to this moment her mind had been occupied by but one human being, and that was her lover. Now, for the first time during the evening, she recollected that the man of her choice was not the man of her father's choice, but, more than almost any other person, the object of his suspicion, if not of his aversion. Yet she loved them both; she could not take sides with one against the other; it would kill her to give up the affection of either. All impulse, all passion, blood and brain as tremulous as quicksilver, she ran down stairs, opened the door into the study where the doctor stood among his boxes, wavered backward under a momentary throb of fear, then sprang forward, threw her arms around his neck and sobbed upon his shoulder,
"Oh, papa!—I am so happy!—so miserable!"
The doctor stared in astonishment and in some vague alarm. Hardly aware of how much energy he used, he detached her from him and held her out at arm's length, looking anxiously at her for an explanation.
"Oh, don't push me away," begged Lillie, and struggled back to him, trying to hide her face against his breast.
A suspicion of the truth fell across the Doctor, but he strove to fling it from him as one dashes off a disagreeable reptile. Still, he looked quite nervous and apprehensive as he said, "What is it, my child?"
"Mr. Carter will tell you," she whispered; then, before he could speak, "Do love him for my sake."
He pushed her sobbing into a chair, and turned his back on her with a groan.
"Oh!—That man!—I can't—I won't."
He walked several times rapidly up and down the room, and then broke out again.
"I can not consent. I will not consent. It is not my duty. Oh, Lillie! how could you choose the very man of all that—! I tell you this must not be. It must stop here. I have no confidence in him. He will not make you happy. He will make you miserable. I tell you that you will regret the day that you marry him to the last moment of your life. My child," (persuasively) "you must believe me. You must trust my judgment. Will you not be persuaded? Will you not stop where you are?"
He ceased his walk and gazed eagerly at her, hoping for some affirmative sign. As may be supposed Lillie could not give it; she could make no very distinct signs just then, either one way or the other; she did not speak, nor look at him, nor shake her head, nor nod it; she only covered her face with her hands, and sobbed. Then the Doctor, feeling himself to be forsaken, and acknowledging it by outward dumb show, after the manner of men who are greatly moved, went to the other end of the room, sat down by himself and dropped his head into his hands, as if accepting utter loneliness in the world. Lillie gave him one glance in his acknowledged extremity of desertion, and, running to him, knelt at his feet and laid her head against his. She was certainly the most unhappy of the two, but her eagerness was even stronger than her misery.
"Oh papa! Why do you hate him so?"
"I don't hate him. I dread him. I suspect him. I know he will not make you happy. I know he will make you miserable."
"But why?—why? Perhaps he can explain it. Tell him what you think, papa. I am sure he can explain every thing."
But the Doctor only groaned, rose up, disentangled himself from his daughter, and leaving her there on the floor, continued his doleful walk.
Never having really feared what had come to pass, but only given occasional thought to it as a possible though improbable calamity, he had not inquired strictly into Carter's manner of life, and so had nothing definite to allege against him. At the same time he knew perfectly well from trifling circumstances, incidental remarks, general air and bearing, that he was one of the class known in the world as "men about town:" a class not only obnoxious to the Doctor's moral sentiments as the antipodes of his own purity, but also as being a natural product of that slaveholding system which he regarded as a compendium of injustice and wickedness; a class the members of which were constantly coming to grief and bringing sorrow upon those who held them in affection. He knew them; he had watched and disliked them since his childhood; he was familiar by unpleasant observation with their language, feelings, and doings; he knew where they began, how they went on, and in what sort they ended. The calamities which they wrought for themselves and all who were connected with them he had witnessed in a hundred similar, and, so to speak, reflected instances. He remembered young Hammersley, who had sunk down in drunken paralysis and burned his feet to a crisp at his father's fire. Young Ellicot had dashed out his brains by leaping from a fourth story window in a fit of delirium tremens. Tom Akers was shot dead while drunk by a negro whom he had horribly tortured. Fred Sanderson beat his wife until she left him, spent his property at bars and gaming-tables and died in Cuba with Walker. Others he recollected, by the dozen, it seemed to him, who had fallen, wild with whiskey, in grog-shop broils or savage street rencontres. Those who lived to grow old had slave-born children, whom they either shamelessly acknowledged, or more shamelessly ignored, and perhaps sold at the auction-block. They were drunkards, gamblers, adulterers, murderers. Of such was the kingdom of Hell. And this man, to whom his only child, his Lillie, had entrusted her heart, was, he feared, he almost knew, one of that same class, although not, it was to be hoped, so deeply stained with the brutish forms of vice which flow directly from slavery. He could not entrust her to him; he could not accept him as a son. At the same time he could not in this interview make any distinct charges against his life and character. Accordingly his talk was vague, incoherent, and sounded to Lillie like the frettings of groundless prejudice. The painful interview lasted above an hour, and, so far as concerned a decision, ended precisely where it began.
"Go to your bed, my child," the Doctor said at last. "And go to sleep if you can. You will cry yourself sick."
She gave him a silent kiss, wet with tears, and went away with an aching heart and a wearied frame.
For two hours or more the Doctor continued his miserable walk up and down the study, from the door to the window, from corner to corner, occasionally stopping to rest a tired body which yet had no longing for slumber. He went back over his daughter's life, beginning with the infantile days when he used to send the servant away from the cradle in which she lay, and rock it himself for the pure pleasure of watching her. He remembered how she had expanded into the whole of his heart when her mother died. He thought how solely he had loved her since that bereavement, and how her love for him had grown with her growth and strengthened with every maturing power of her spirit. In the enthusiasm, the confidence of this recollection, he did not doubt at moments but that he could win her back to himself from this misplaced affection. She was so young yet, her heart must be so pliable yet, that he could surely influence her. As this comforting hope stole through him he felt a desire to look at her. Yes, he must see her again before he could get to sleep; he would go gently to her room and gaze at her without waking her. Putting on his slippers, he crept softly up stairs and opened her door without noise. By the light of a dying candle he saw Lillie in her night dress, sitting up in bed and wiping the tears from her cheeks with her hands.
"Papa!" she said in an eager gasp, tremulous with affection, grief and hope.
"Oh, my child! I thought you would be asleep," he answered, advancing to the bedside.
"You are not very angry with me?" she asked, making him sit down by her.
"No; not angry. But so grieved!"
"Then may he not write to me?"
She looked so loving, so eager, so sorrowful that he could not say No.
"Yes; he may write."
She drew his head towards her with her wet hands, and gave him a kiss the very gratitude of which pained him.
"But not you," he added, trying to be stern. "You must not write. You must not entangle yourself farther. I want to make inquiries. I must have time in this matter. I will not be hurried. You must not consider yourself engaged, Lillie. I cannot allow it."
"Oh, you will inquire, papa?" implored the girl, confident that Carter's character would come unharmed out of the furnace of investigation.
"Yes, yes. But give me time. This is too important, too solemn a matter to be hurried over. I will see. I will decide hereafter. There. Now you must go to sleep. Good night, my darling."
"Good night, dear papa," she murmured, with the sigh of a tired child. "Forgive me."
It was near morning before either of them slept; and both came to the breakfast table with pale, wearied faces. There were dark circles around Lillie's eyes, and her head ached so that she could hardly hold it up, but still she put on a piteous, propitiating smile. She hoped and feared unreasonable things every time that her father spoke or seemed to her to be about to speak. She thought he might say that he had given up all his opposition; and in the same breath she dreaded lest he might declare that it must be all over forever. But the conversation of the evening was not resumed, and the meal passed in absorbed, anxious, embarrassing silence, neither being able to talk on any subject but the one which filled their thoughts. An hour later Lillie suddenly fled from the parlor to her own room. She had seen Carter approaching the house; she felt certain that he came to demand her of her father; and at such an interview she could not have been present, she thought, without dying. The mere thought of it as she sat by her window, looking out without seeing anything, made her breath come so painfully that she wondered whether her lungs were not affected, and whether she were not destined to die early. Her fatigue, and still more her troubles, made her babyish, like an invalid. After half an hour had passed she heard the outer door close upon the visitor, and could not resist the temptation of peeping out to see him, if it were only his back. He was looking, with those handsome and audacious eyes of his straight at her window. With a sudden throb of alarm, or shame, or some other womanish emotion, she hid herself behind the curtain, only to look out again when he had disappeared, and to grieve lest she had given him offence. After a while her father called her, and she went down trembling to the parlor.
"I have seen him," said the Doctor. "I told him what I told you. I told him that I must wait,—that I wanted time for reflection. I gave him to understand that it must not be considered an engagement. At the same time I allowed him to write to you. God forgive me if I have done wrong. God pity us both."
Lillie did not think of asking if he had been civil to the Colonel; she knew that he would not and could not be discourteous to any human being. She made no answer to what he said except by going gently to him and kissing him.
"Come, you must dress yourself," he added. "The regiment goes on board the transport at twelve o'clock. I promised the Colonel that we would be there to bid him—and Captain Colburne good-bye."
Dressing for the street was usually a long operation with Lillie, but not this morning. Although she reached the station of the Carrollton railroad in a breathless condition, it seemed to her that her father had never walked so slowly; and on board the cars she really fatigued herself with the nervous tension of an involuntary mental effort to push forward the wheezy engine.
Carrollton is one the suburban offshoots of New Orleans, and contains some two thousand inhabitants, mostly of the poorer classes, and of Germanic lineage. Around it stretches the tame, rich, dead level which constitutes southern Louisiana. The only raised ground is the levee; the only grand feature of the landscape is the Mississippi; all the rest is greenery, cypress groves, orange thickets, flowers, or bare flatness. As Lillie emerged from the brick and plaster railroad-station she saw the Tenth and its companion regiments along the levee, the men sitting down in their ranks and waiting patiently, after the manner of soldiers. The narrow open place between the river and the dusty little suburb was thronged with citizens;—German shopkeepers, silversmiths, &c., who were out of custom, and Irish laborers who were out of work;—poor women, (whose husbands were in the rebel army) selling miserable cakes and beer to the enlisted men; all, white as well as black, ragged, dirty, lounging, listless hopeless; none of them hostile, at least not in manner; a discouraged, subduced, stricken population. Against the bank were moored six steamboats, their smoke-stacks, and even their upper decks, overlooking the low landscape. They were not the famous floating palaces of the Mississippi, those had all been carried away by Lovell, or burnt at the wharves, or sunk in battle near the forts; these were smaller craft, such as formerly brought cotton down the Red River, or threaded the shallows between Lake Pontchartrain and Mobile. They looked more fragile even than northern steamboats; their boilers and machinery were unenclosed, visible, neglected, ugly; the superstructure was a card-house of stanchions and clapboards.
The Doctor led Lillie through the crowd to a pile of lumber which promised a view of the scene. As she mounted the humble lookout she caught sight of a manly equestrian figure, and heard a powerful bass voice thunder out a sentence of command. It was so guttural as to be incomprehensible to her; but in obedience to it the lounging soldiers sprang to their feet and resumed their ranks; the shining muskets rose straight from the shoulder, and then took a uniform slope; there was a bustle, a momentary mingling, and she saw knapsacks instead of faces.
"Battalion!" the Colonel had commanded. "Shoulder arms. Right shoulder shift arms. Right face."
He now spoke a few words to the adjutant, who repeated the orders to the captains, and then signalled to the drum-major. To the sound of drum and fife the right company, followed successively by the others from right to left, filed down the little slope with a regular, resounding tramp, and rapidly crowded one of the transports with blue uniforms and shining rifles. How superb in Lillie's eyes was the Colonel, though his face was grim and his voice harsh with arbitrary power. She liked him for his bronzed color, his monstrous mustache, his air of matured manhood; yes, how much better she liked him for being thirty-five years old than if he had been only twenty-five! How much prouder of him was she because she was a little afraid of him, than if he had seemed one whom she might govern! Presently a brilliant blush rose like a sunrise upon her countenance. Carter had caught sight of them, and was approaching. A wave of his hand and a stare of his imperious eyes drove away the flock of negroes who had crowded their lookout. The interview was short, and to a listener would have been uninteresting, unless he had known the sentimental relations of the parties. The Doctor did nearly all of that part of the talking which was done in words; and his observations, if they were noted at all, probably seemed to the other two mere flatness and irrelevancy. He prophecied success to the expedition; he wished the Colonel success for the sake of the good cause; finally he warmed so far as to wish him personal success and safety. But what was even this to that other question of union or separation for life?
Presently the Adjutant approached with a salute, and reported that the transport would not accommodate the whole regiment.
"It must," said the Colonel. "The men are not properly stowed. I suppose they won't stow. They hav'n't learned yet that they can't have a state-room apiece. I will attend to it, Adjutant."
Turning to the Ravenels, he added, "I suppose I must bid you good-bye. I shall have little more time to myself. I am so much obliged to you for coming to see us off. God bless you! God bless you!"
When a man of the Colonel's nature utters this benediction seriously he is unquestionably much more moved than ordinarily. Lillie felt this: not that she considered Carter wicked, but simply more masculine than most men: and she was so much shaken by his unusual emotion that she could hardly forbear bursting into tears in public. When he was gone she would have been glad to fly immediately, if only she could have found a place where she might be alone. Then she had to compose herself to meet Colburne.
"The Colonel sent me to take care of you," he said, as he joined them.
"How good of him!" thought Lillie, meaning thereby Carter, and not the Captain.
"Will they all get on board this boat?" she inquired.
"Yes. They are moving on now. The men of course hate to stow close, and it needed the Colonel to make them do it."
"It looks awfully crowded," she answered, searching the whole craft over for a glimpse of Carter.
The Doctor had little to say, and seemed quite sad; he was actually thinking how much easier he could have loved this one than the other. Colburne knew nothing of the great event of the previous evening, and so was not miserable about it. He hoped to send back to this girl such a good report of himself from the field of impending battle as should exact her admiration, and perhaps force her heart to salute him Imperator. He was elated and confident; boasted of the soldierly, determined look of the men; pointed out his own company with pride; prophesied brilliant success. When at last he bade them good-bye he did it in a light, kindly brave way which was meant to cheer up Miss Ravenel under any possible cloud of foreboding.
"I won't say anything about being brought back on my shield. I won't ever promise that there shall be enough left to fill a table-spoon."
Yet the heart felt a pang of something like remorse for this counterfeit gayety of the lips.
The gangway plank was hauled in; a few stragglers leaped aboard at the risk of a ducking; the regimental band on the upper deck struck up a national air; the negroes on shore danced and cackled and screamed with childish delight; the noisy high-pressure engine began to sob and groan like a demon in pain,—the boat veered slowly into the stream and followed its consorts. Two gunboats and six transports steamed up the yellow river, trailing columns of black smoke athwart the blue sky, and away over the green levels of Louisiana.
Now came nearly a week of anxiety to Lillie and trouble to her father. She was with him as much as possible, partly because that was her old and loving habit, and partly because she wanted him continually at hand to comfort her. She was not satisfied with seeing him morning and evening; she must visit him at the hospitals, and go back and forth with him on the street cars; she must hear from him every half hour that there was no danger of evil tidings, as if he were a newspaper issued by extras; she must keep at him with questions that no man could answer.
"Papa, do you believe that Mouton has fifteen thousand men? Do you believe that there will be a great battle? Do you believe that our side" (she could call it our side now) "will be beaten? Do you believe that our loss will be very heavy? What is the usual proportion of killed in a battle? You don't know? Well, but what are the probabilities?"
If he took up a book or opened his cases of minerals, it was, "Oh, please don't read," or, "Please let those stones alone. I want you to talk to me. When do you suppose the battle will happen? When shall we get the first news? When shall we get the particulars?"
And so she kept questioning; she was enough to worry the life out of papa: but then he was accustomed to be thus worried. He was a most patient man, even in the bosom of his own family, which is not so common a trait as many persons suppose. One afternoon those sallow, black-eyed Hectors at the corners of the streets, who looked so much like gamblers and talked so much like traitors, had an air of elation which scared Miss Ravenel; and she accordingly hurried home to receive a confirmation of her fears from Mrs. Larue, who had heard that there had been a great battle near Thibodeaux, that Weitzel had been defeated and that Mouton would certainly be in the city by next day afternoon. For an hour she was in an agony of unalleviated terror, for her comforter had not returned from the hospital. When he came she flew upon him and ravenously demanded consolation.
"My dear, you must not be so childish," remonstrated the Doctor. "You must have more nerve, or you won't last the year out."
"But what will become of you? If Mouton comes here you will be sacrificed—you and all the Union men. I wish you would take refuge on board some of the ships of war. Do go and see if they will take you. I shan't be hurt. I can get along."
Ravenel laughed.
"My dear, have you gone back to your babyhood? I don't believe this story at all. When the time comes I will look out for the safety of both of us."
"But do please go somewhere and see if you can't hear something."
And when the Doctor was thus driven to pick up his hat, she took hers also and accompanied him, not being able to wait for the news until his return. They could learn nothing; the journals had no bulletins out; the Union banker, Mr. Barker, had nothing to communicate; they looked wistfully at headquarters, but did not dare to intrude upon General Butler. As they went homeward the knots of well-dressed Catilines at the corners carried their treasonable heads as high and stared at Federal uniforms as insolently as ever. Ravenel thought sadly how much they resembled in air the well-descended gentleman to whom he feared that he should have to trust the happiness of his only child. Those of them who knew him did not speak nor bow, but glared at him as a Pawnee might glare at the captive hunter around whose stake he expected to dance on the morrow. Evidently his life would be in peril if Mouton should enter the city; but he was a sanguine man and did not believe in the calamity.
Next morning, as the father set off for the hospital, the daughter said, "If you hear any thing, do come right straight and tell me."
Twenty minutes afterward Ravenel was back at the house, breathless and radiant. Weitzel had gained a victory; had taken cannon and hundreds of prisoners; was in full march on the rebel capital, Thibodeaux.
"Oh! I am so happy!" cried the heretofore Secessionist. "But is there no list of killed and wounded? Has our loss been heavy? What do you think? What do you think are the probabilities? How strange that there should be no list of killed and wounded! Was that positively all that you heard? So little? Oh, papa, don't, please, go to the hospital to-day. I can't bear to stay alone.—Well, if you must go, I will go with you."
And go she did, but left him in half an hour after she got there, crazy to be near the bulletin boards. During the day she bought all the extras, and read four descriptions of the battle, all precisely alike, because copied from the same official bulletin, and all unsatisfactory because they did not contain lists of killed and wounded. But at the post-office, just before it closed, she was rewarded for that long day of wearying inquiries. There was a letter from Carter to herself, and another from Colburne to her father.
"My dear Lillie," began the first; and here she paused to kiss the words, and wipe away the tears. "We have had a smart little fight, and whipped the enemy handsomely. Weitzel managed matters in a way that really does him great credit, and the results are one cannon, three hundred prisoners, possession of the killed and wounded, and of the field of battle. Our loss was trifling, and includes no one whom you know. Life and limb being now doubly valuable to me for your sake, I am happy to inform you that I did not get hurt. I am tired and have a great deal to do, so that I can only scratch you a line. But you must believe me, and I know that you will believe me, when I tell you that I have the heart to write you a dozen sheets instead of only a dozen sentences. Good bye, my dear one.
"Ever and altogether yours."
It was Lillie's first love letter; it was from a lover who had just come unharmed out of the perils of battle; it was a blinding, thrilling page to read. She would not let her father take it; no, that was not in the agreement at all; it was too sacred even for his eyes. But she read it to him, all but those words of endearment; all but those very words that to her were the most precious of all. In return he handed her Colburne's epistle, which was also brief.
"My Dear Doctor,—I have had the greatest pleasure of my whole life; I have fought under the flag of my country, and seen it victorious. I have not time to write particulars, but you will of course get them in the papers. Our regiment behaved most nobly, our Colonel proved himself a hero, and our General a genius. We are encamped for the night on the field of battle, cold and hungry, but brimming over with pride and happiness. There may be another battle to-morrow, but be sure that we shall conquer. Our men were greenhorns yesterday, but they are veterans to-day, and will face any thing. Ask Miss Ravenel if she will not turn loyal for the sake of our gallant little army. It deserves even that compliment.
"Truly yours."
"He doesn't say that he is unhurt," observed the Doctor.
"Of course he is," answered Lillie, not willing to suppose for him the honor of a wound when her paragon had none. "Colonel Carter says that the loss includes no one whom we know."
"He is a noble fellow," pursued the Doctor, still dwelling on the young man's magnanimity in not thinking to speak of himself. "He is the most truly heroic, chivalrous gentleman that I know. He is one of nature's noblemen."
Lillie was piqued at these praises of Colburne, not considering him half so fine a character as Carter, in eulogy of whom her father said nothing. She thought of asking him if he had noticed how the Captain spoke of the Colonel as a hero—but concluded not to do it, for fear he might reply that the latter ought to have paid the former the same compliment. She felt that for the present, until her father's prejudices should wear away, she must be contented with deifying her Achilles alone. Notwithstanding this pettish annoyance, grievous as it was to a most loving spirit strongly desirous of sympathy, the rest of the day passed delightfully, the time being divided between frequent readings of Carter's letter, and intervals of meditation thereon. The epistle which her father wrote to the Colonel was also thoroughly read, and was in fact so emendated and enlarged by her suggestions that it might be considered her composition.
CHAPTER XVI. COLONEL CARTER GAINS ONE VICTORY, AND MISS RAVENEL ANOTHER.
After the victory of Georgia Landing, the brigade was stationed for the winter in the vicinity of the little half-Creole, half-American city of Thibodeaux. I have not time to tell of the sacking of this land of rich plantations; how the inhabitants, by flying before the northern Vandals, induced the spoliation of their own property; how the negroes defiled and plundered the forsaken houses, and how the soldiers thereby justified themselves in plundering the negroes; how the furniture, plate and libraries of the Lafourche planters were thus scattered upon the winds of destruction. These things are matters of public and not of private history. If I were writing the life and times of Colonel Carter, or of Captain Colburne, I should relate them with conscientious tediousness, adding a description in the best style of modern word-painting of the winding and muddy Bayou Lafourche, the interminable parallel levees, the flat border of rich bottom land, the fields of moving cane, and the enclosing stretches of swampy forest. But I am simply writing a biography of Miss Ravenel illustrated by sketches of her three or four relatives and intimates.
To reward Colonel Carter for his gallantry at Georgia Landing, and to compensate him for his disappointment in not obtaining the star of a brigadier, the commanding general appointed him military governor of Louisiana, and stationed him at New Orleans.
In his present temper and with his present intentions he was sincerely delighted to obtain the generous loot of the governorship. In order to save up money for his approaching married life, he tried to be economical, and actually thought that he was so, although he regularly spent the monthly two hundred and twenty-two dollars of his colonelcy. But the position of governor would give him several thousands a year, and these thousands he could and would put aside to comfort and adorn his future wife. Now-a-days there was no private and unwarrantable attachment to his housekeeping establishment; the pure love that was in his heart overthrew and drove out all the unclean spirits who were its enemies. Moreover, he rapidly cut down his drinking habits, first pruning off his cocktails before breakfast, then his absinthe before dinner, then his afternoon whiskeys straight, then his convivial evening punches, and in short everything but the hot night-cap with which he prepared himself for slumber.
"That may have to go, too," he said to himself, "when I am married."
He spent every spare moment with Lillie and her father. He was quite happy in his love-born sanctification of spirit, and showed it in his air, countenance and conversation. Man of the world as he was, or thought he was, roué as he had been, it never occurred to him to wonder at the change which had come over him, nor to laugh at himself because of it. To a nature so simply passionate as his, the present hour of passion was the only hour that he could realize. He shortly came to feel as if he had never lived any other life than this which he was living now.
The Doctor soon lost his keen distrust of Carter; he began to respect him, and consequently to like him. Indeed he could not help being pleased with any tolerable person who pleased his daughter; although he sometimes exhibited a petulant jealousy of such persons which was droll enough, considering that he was only her father.
"Papa, I believe you would be severe on St. Cecilia, or St. Ursula, if I should get intimate with them," Lillie had once said. "I never had a particular friend since I was a baby, but what you picked her to pieces."
And the Doctor had in reply looked a little indignant, not perceiving the justice of the criticism. By the way, Lillie had a similar jealousy of him, and was ready to slander any single woman who ogled him too fondly. There were moments of great anguish when she feared that he might be inveigled into admiring, perhaps loving, perhaps (horrid thought!) marrying, Mrs. Larue. If it ever occurred to her that this would be a poetically just retribution for her own sin of giving away her heart without asking his approval, she drew no resignation from the thought. I may as well state here that the widow did occasionally make eyes at the Doctor. He was oldish, but he was very charming, and any man is better than no man. She had given up Carter; our friend Colburne was with his regiment at Thibodeaux; and the male angels of New Orleans were so few that their visits were far between. So those half-shut, almond eyes of dewy blackness and brightness were frequently turned sidelong upon Ravenel, with a coquettish significance which made Lillie uneasy in the innermost chambers of her filial affection. Mrs. Larue had very remarkable eyes. They were the only features of her face that were not under her control; they were so expressive that she never could fully veil their meaning. They were beautiful spiders, weaving quite visibly webs of entanglement, the threads of which were rays of dazzling light and subtle sentiment.
"Devilish handsome eyes! Dangerous, by Jove!" remarked the Colonel, judging in his usual confident, broadcast fashion, right rather more than half the time. "I've seen the day, by Jove! when they would have finished me."
For the present the Doctor was saved from their perilous witchery by the advent of Colburne, who, having obtained a leave of absence for ten days, came of course to spend it with the Ravenels. Immediately the Larue orbs kindled for him, as if they were pyres whereon his passions, if he chose, might consume themselves to ashes. She exhibited and felt no animosity on account of bygones. She was a most forgiving, cold-hearted, good-natured, selfish, well-bred little creature. She never had standing quarrels, least of all with the other sex; and she could practice a marvellous perseverance, without any acrimony in case of disappointment. Colburne was favored with private interviews which he did not seek, and visions of conquest which did not excite his ambition. He was taken by gentle force up the intricate paths of a mountain of talk, and shown the unsubstantial and turbulent kingdoms of coquetry, with a hint that all might be his if he would but fall down and worship. It became a question in his mind whether Milton should not have represented Satan as a female of French extraction and New Orleans education.
"Captain Colburne, you do not like women," she once said.
"I beg your pardon—I repel the horrible accusation."
"Oh, I admit that you like a woman—this one, perhaps, or that one. But it is the individual which interests you, and not the sex. For woman as woman—for woman because she is woman—you care little."
"Mrs. Larue, it is a very singular charge. Now that you have brought it to my notice, I don't know but I must plead guilty, to some extent. You mean to say, I suppose, that I can't or won't fall in love with the first woman I come to, merely because she is handy."
"That is precisely it, only you have phrased it rather grossly."
"And do you charge it as a fault in my character?"
"I avow that I do not regard it as so manly, so truly masculine, you comprehend, as the opposite trait."
"Upon my honor!" exclaimed Colburne in amazement. "Then you must consider,—I beg your pardon—but it follows that Don Juan was a model man."
"In my opinion he was. Excuse my frankness. I am older than you. I have seen much life. I have a right to philosophise. Just see here. It is intended for wise reasons that man should not leave woman alone; that he should seek after her constantly, and force himself upon her; that, losing one, he should find another. Therefore the man, who, losing one, chooses another, best represents his sex."
She waited for a reply to her argument, but Colburne was too much crushed to offer one. He shirked his honest duty as an interlocutor by saying, "Mrs. Larue, this is a novel idea to me, and I must have time for consideration before I accept it."
She laughed without a sign of embarrassment, and changed the subject.
But Mrs. Larue was not the only cause which prevented Colburne's visit from being a monotony of happiness. He soon discovered that there was an understanding between Colonel Carter and Miss Ravenel; not an engagement, perhaps, but certainly an inner circle of confidences and sentiments into which he was not allowed to enter. In this matter Lillie was more open and legible than her lover. She so adored her hero because of the deadly perils which he had affronted, and the honor which he had borne from among their flame and smoke, that she could not always conceal, and sometimes did not care to conceal, her admiration. Not that she ever expressed it by endearments or fondling words: no, that would have been a coarse audacity of which her maidenly nature was incapable: but there were rare glances of irrepressible meaning, surprised out of her very soul, which came like revelations. When she asked Colburne to tell her the whole story of Georgia Landing, he guessed easily what she most wanted to hear. To please her, he made Carter the hero of the epic, related how impetuous he was during the charge, how superbly cool as soon as it was over, how he sat his horse and waved his sabre and gave his orders. To be sure, the enthusiastic youth took a soldierly pleasure in the history; he was honestly proud of his commander, and he loved to tell the tale of his own only battle. But notwithstanding this slight pleasure, notwithstanding that the Doctor treated him with even tender consideration, and that Mrs. Larue was often amusing as well as embarrassing, he did not enjoy his visit. This mysterious cloud which encompassed the Colonel and Miss Ravenel, separating them from all others, cast upon him a shadow of melancholy. In the first place, of course, it was painful to suspect that he had lost this charming girl; in the second, he grieved on her account, not believing it possible that with that man for a husband she could be permanently happy. Carter was a brave soldier, an able officer, a person of warm and naturally kind impulses; but gentlemen of such habits as his were not considered good matches where Colburne had formed his opinions. No man, whatever his talents, could win a professorship in Winslow University, or occupy a respectable niche in New Boston society, who rarely went to church, who drank freely and openly, who had been seen to gamble, who swore like a trooper, and who did other things which the Colonel had been known to do. All this time he was so over-modest by nature, and so oppressed by an acquired sense of soldierly subordination, that he never seriously thought of setting himself up as a rival against the Colonel. Perhaps I am tedious in my analysis of the Captain's opinions, motives and sentiments. The truth is that I take a sympathetic interest in him, believing him to be a representative young man of my native New England, and that I consider him a better match for Miss Ravenel than this southern "high-toned" gentleman whom she insists upon having.
While Colburne was feeling so strongly with regard to Lillie, could she not devote a sentiment to him? Not many; she had not time; she was otherwise occupied. So selfishly wrapped up in her own affections was she, that, until Mrs. Larue laughingly suggested it, she never thought of his being jealous or miserable on account of her. Then she hoped that he did not care much for her, and was really sorry for him if he did. What a horrible fate it seemed to her to be disappointed in love! She remembered that she had once liked him very much indeed; but so she did even yet, she added, with a comfortable closing of her eyes to all change in the nature of the sentiment; and perhaps he only fancied her in a similar Platonic fashion. Once she had cut out of a paper, and put away in so safe a place that now she could not find it, a little poem which he had written, and which was only interesting because he was the author. She blushed as she called her folly to mind, and resolved that it should never be known to any one. It is curious that she was a little vexed with Colburne because of this reminiscence, and felt that it more than repaid him for all the secret devotion which he might have lavished on her.
"My leave of absence has not been as pleasant as I hoped it would be," he once had the courage to remark.
"Why not?" she asked absent-mindedly; for she was thinking of her own heart affairs.
"I fear that I have lost some sympathies which I once——"
Here he checked himself, not daring to confess how much he had once hoped. With a sudden comprehension of his meaning Lillie colored intensely, after her usual fashion on startling occasions, and glanced about the room in search of some other subject of conversation.
"I have a sense of being a stranger in the family," he explained after a moment of painful silence.
She might surely have said something kind here, but she was too conscientious or too much embarrassed to do it. She made one of those efforts which women are capable of, and sailed out of the difficulty on the wings of a laugh.
"I am sure Mrs. Larue takes a deep interest in you."
Colburne colored in his turn under a sense of mortification mingled with something like anger. Both were relieved when Doctor Ravenel entered, and thereby broke up the fretting dialogue. Now why was not the young man informed of the real state of affairs in the family? Simply because the Doctor, fearful for his child's happiness, and loth to lose dominion over her future, could not yet bring himself to consider the engagement as a finality.
There were no scenes during the leave of absence. Neither Colburne nor Madame Larue made a declaration or received a refusal. Two days before the leave of absence terminated he sadly and wisely and resolutely took his departure for Thibodeaux. Nothing of interest happened to him during the winter, except that he accompanied his regiment in Weitzel's advance up the Teche, which resulted in the retreat of Mouton from Camp Beasland, and the destruction of the rebel iron-clad "Cotton." A narrative of the expedition, written with his usual martial enthusiasm, but which unfortunately I have not space to publish, was received by Doctor Ravenel, and declared by him to be equal in precision, brevity, elegance, and every other classical quality of style, to the Commentaries of Julius Cæsar. The Colonel remarked, in his practical way, that the thing seemed to have been well planned, and that the Captain's account was a good model for a despatch, only a little too long-winded and poetical.
Colburne being absent, Mrs. Larue turned her guns once more upon the Doctor. As the motto of an Irishman at a Donnybrook fair is, "Wherever you see a head, hit it," so the rule which guided her in the Vanity Fair of this life was, "Wherever you see a man, set your cap at him." It must not be supposed, however, that she made the same eyes at the Doctor that she made at Colburne. Her manner would vary amazingly, and frequently did vary to suit her company, just as a chameleon's jacket is said to change color according to the tree which he inhabits; and this was not because she was simple and easily influenced, but precisely because she was artful and anxious to govern, and knew that soft looks and words are woman's best means of empire. It was interesting to see what a nun-like and saintly pose she could take in the presence of a clergyman. To the Colonel she acted the part of Lady Gay Spanker; to the Doctor she was femme raisonnable, and, so far as she could be, femme savante; to Colburne she of late generally played the female Platonic philosopher. It really annoys me to reflect how little space I must allow myself for painting the character of this remarkable woman. "She was nobody's fool but her own," remarked the Colonel, who understood her in a coarse, incomplete way; nor did she deceive either Lillie or the Doctor in regard to the main features of her character, although they had no suspicion how far she could carry some of her secret caprices. It is hard to blind completely the eyes of one's own family and daily intimates.
As a hen is in trouble when her ducklings take to the water, so was Lillie's soul disturbed when her father was out on the flattering sea of Madame's conversation. Carter was amused at the wiles of the widow and the terrors of the daughter. He comprehended the affair as well as Lillie, at the same time that he did not see so very much harm in it, for the lady was pretty, clever, young enough, and had money. But nothing came of the flirtation—at least not for the present. Although the Doctor was an eminently sociable being and indefatigably courteous to all of Eve's daughters, he was not at bottom what you call a ladies' man. He was too much wrapped up in his daughter and in his scientific studies to be easily pervious to the shafts of Cupid; besides which he was pretty solidly cuirassed by fifty-five years of worldly experience. Madame even felt that she was kept at a distance, or, to use a more corporeal and specially correct expression, at arm's length, by his very politeness.
"Doctor, have you not thought it odd sometimes that I never consult you professionally?" she asked one day, changing suddenly from femme raisonnable to Lady Gay Spanker.
"Really, it never occurred to me. I don't expect to prescribe for my own family. It would be unfair to my brother doctors. I believe, too, that you are never sick."
"Thanks to Heaven, never! But that is not the only cause. The truth is—perhaps you have not noticed the fact—but you are not married. If you want me for a patient, there must first be a Mrs. Ravenel."
"Ah! Yes. Somebody to whom I could confide what is the matter with you."
"That would not matter. We women always tell our own maladies. No; that would not matter; it is merely the look of the thing that troubles me."
The Doctor had the air of being cornered, and remained smiling at Mrs. Larue, awaiting her pleasure.
"I do not propose to consult you," she continued. "I am so constantly well that I am almost unhappy about it. But I do think seriously of studying medicine. What is your opinion of female doctors?"
"A capital idea!" exclaimed Ravenel, jumping at the change of subject. "Why not follow it up? You could master the science of medicine in two or three years, and you have ability enough to practice it to great advantage. You might be extremely useful by making a specialty of your own sex."
"You are a professor of theory and practice, Doctor. Will you instruct me?"
"Oh! as to that—Elderkin would be better. He is precisely in what ought to be your line. I think that out of kindness to you I ought to say No."
"Not even if I would promise to study mineralogy also?"
Ravenel pondered an instant, and then eluded her with a story.
"That reminds me of a chaffering which I overheard in a country tavern in Georgia between a Yankee peddler and an indigenous specimen. The Cracker wanted to sell the stranger a horse. 'I don't care particularly for a trade,' says the Yankee, 'but I'll buy the shoes if you'll throw in the creetur.' Medicine is a great science; but mineralogy is a far vaster one."
In short, the Doctor was to Madame like a cold cake to a lump of butter; he calmly endured her, but gave her no encouragement to melt upon his bosom. Just at this time he was more than usually safe from love entanglements because he was so anxious about Lillie's position and prospects. He made what inquiries he could concerning Carter's way of life, and watched his demeanor and conversation closely while talking to him with the politest of smiles. He was unexpectedly gratified by discovering that his proposed son-in-law led—at least for the present—a sober and decent life. With his devotion as a lover no fault could be found by the most exacting of fathers. He called on Lillie every evening and sent her flowers every morning; in short, he bloomed with fair promise of being an affectionate and even uxorious husband. Gradually the Doctor weaned himself from his selfish or loving suspicions, and became accustomed to the idea that from this man his daughter might draw a life-long happiness. Thus when it happened, late in January, nearly four months after the declaration, that Carter requested to be informed definitely as to his prospects, he obtained permission to consider the affair an engagement.
"You know I can't promise wealth to Miss Ravenel," he said frankly. "She may have to put up with a very simple style of life."
"If she can't be contented, I shall not pity her," answered the Doctor. "I don't believe that the love of money is the root of all evil. But I do say that it is one of the most degrading passions conceivable in woman. I sympathise with no woman whose only trouble is that she cannot have and spend a great deal of money. By the way, you know how unable I am to endow her."
"Don't mention it. You have already endowed her. The character that you have transmitted to her, sir—"
The Doctor bowed so promptly and appreciatively that the Colonel did not feel it necessary to round off the compliment.
As men do not talk copiously with each other on these subjects, the interview did not last ten minutes.
I hope that I shall not impress the reader unfavorably concerning Lillie's character when I state that she was frankly happy over the result of her lover's probation. Her delight did not arise merely from the prospect of a smooth course of love and marriage. It sprang in part from the greatly comforting fact that now there was no difference of opinion, no bar to perfect sympathy, between her and that loved, respected, almost adored papa. I have given a very imperfect idea of her if I have not already made it clear that with her the sentiment of filial affection was almost a passion. From very early childhood she had been remarkable for papa-worship, or whatever may be the learned name for the canonization of one's progenitors. At the age of seven she had propounded the question, "Mamma, why don't they make papa President of the United States?" Some light may be shed on the character of this departed mother and wife by stating that her answer was, "My dear, your father never chose to meddle in politics." Whether Mrs. Ravenel actually deified the Doctor with all the simple faith of the child, or whether the reply was merely meant to confirm the latter in her filial piety, is a matter of doubt even to persons who were well acquainted with the deceased lady.
At last Lillie could prattle to her father about Carter as much as she liked; and she used the privilege freely, being habituated to need, demand and obtain his sympathies. Not that she filled his ears with confessions of love, or said that Colonel Carter was "so handsome!" or anything of that sickish nature. But when her father came in from a walk, it was, "Papa, did you see Mr. Carter anywhere? And what did he say?" At another time it was, "Papa, did Mr. Carter ever tell you about his first campaign against the Indians?" And then would follow the story, related with glee and a humorous appreciation of the grandiloquent ideas of a juvenile West Pointer about to draw his maiden sword. A frequent subject of her conversation was Carter's chance of promotion, not considered with regard to the pecuniary advantages thereof, but in respect to the simple justice of advancing such an able and gallant officer. It was, "Papa, how can the Government be so stupid as to neglect men who know their duties? Mrs. Larue says that the abolitionists are opposed to Mr. Carter because he doesn't hold their ultra opinions. I suppose they would rather favor a man who talks as they do, even if he got whipped every time, and never freed a nigger. If Mr. Carter were on the southern side, he would find promotion fast enough. It is enough to make any one turn rebel."
"My dear," says the Doctor with emphasis, "I would rather be a private soldier under the flag of my country, than be a major-general in the army of those villainous conspirators against country, liberty and humanity. I respect Colonel Carter for holding fast to his patriotic sentiments, in spite of unjust neglect, far more than I would if he were loyal merely because he was sure of being commander-in-chief."
Lillie could not fail to be gratified by such a compliment to the moral worth of her hero. After a few moments of agreeable meditation on the various perfections of that great being, she resumed the old subject.
"I think that there is a chance yet of his getting a star when the official report of the battle of Georgia Landing once reaches the minds of those slow creatures at Washington. What do you think, papa? What are the probabilities?"
"Really, my dear, you perplex me. Prophecy never formed a part of my education. There are even a few events in the past that I am not intimately acquainted with."
"Then you shouldn't look so awfully old, papa. If you will wrinkle up your forehead in that venerable way, as if you were the Wandering Jew, you must expect to have people ask you all sorts of questions. Why will you do it? I hate to see you making yourself so aggravatingly ancient when nature does her best to keep you young."
About these times the Doctor wrote, with a pitying if not a sad heart, to inform Colburne of the engagement. The young man had looked for some such news, but it nevertheless pained him beyond his anticipations. No mental preparation, no melancholy certainty of forecast, ever quite fits us to meet the avalanche of a great calamity. No matter, for instance, how long we have watched the sure invasion of disease upon the life of a dear friend or relative, we are always astonished with a mighty shock when the last feeble breath leaves the wasted body. Colburne had long sat gloomily by the bedside of his dying hope, but when it expired outright he was seemingly none the less full of anguished amazement.
"Who would have thought it!" he repeated to himself. "How could she choose such a husband, so old, so worldly, so immoral? God help her and watch over her. The love of such a man is a calamity. The tender mercies of the wicked are unintentional cruelties."
As for himself, the present seemed a barren waste without a blossom of happiness, and the future another waste without an oasis of hope. For a time he even lost all desire for promotion, or for any other worldly honor or success; and he would not have considered it hard, so undesirable did life appear, if he had known that it was his fate to die in the next battle. If he wanted to live it was only to see the war terminate gloriously, and the stars and stripes once more flying over his whole country. The devotional sentiments which his mother had sown throughout his youth, and which had been warmed for a while into some strength of feeling and purpose by the saintly glory of her death, struggled anew into temporary bloom under the clouds of this second bereavement.
"Not my will but Thine be done," he thought. And then, "How unworthy I am to repeat those words!"
There were certain verses of the Bible which whispered to him a comforting sympathy. Many times a day such a phrase as, "A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," repeated to him as if by some other self or guardian angel, would thrill his mind with the plaintive consolation of requiems.
CHAPTER XVII. COLONEL CARTER IS ENTIRELY VICTORIOUS BEFORE HE BEGINS HIS CAMPAIGN.
Towards the close of this winter of 1862-3 Banks superseded Butler, and the New England Division expanded into the Nineteenth Army Corps. Every one who was in New Orleans during that season will remember the amazement with which he and all other persons saw transport after transport steam up the river, increasing the loyal forces in and around the city by at least ten thousand men, which rumor magnified into twenty-five thousand. Where did they come from, and where were they going, and what would be the result? Since the opening of the war no expedition of magnitude had been conducted with similar secrecy; and every one argued that a general who could plan with such reticence would execute with corresponding vigor and ability. While the Secessionists shrank within themselves, seeing no more hope of freeing Louisiana from Northern Vandals, our Doctor and his fellow Loyalists exulted in a belief that the war would soon be brought to a triumphant close.
"Three mere transports!" exclaimed Ravenel, coming in from a walk on the levee. "It is a most glorious spectacle, this exhibition of the power of the Republic. It equals the greatest military efforts of the greatest military nations. One is absolutely reminded of consular Rome, carrying on the war with Hannibal in Italy, and at the same time sending one great army to Spain and another to Africa. I pin my faith to the tail of General Scott's anaconda. In the end it will crush Secessia, break every bone in its body, and swallow it. I think, Colonel, that we have every reason to congratulate ourselves on the prospects."
"I really can't see it," answered Carter, with a lugubrious laugh.
"How so? You astonish me."
"Don't you perceive that I lose my Governorship?"
"Oh, but—I don't anticipate an immediate close of the struggle. It may last a year yet; and during that time—"
"That is not the point. King Stork has succeeded King Log. King Stork's men must have the nice places and King Log's men must get out of them."
"Oh, but they won't turn you out," exclaimed Lillie, and then blushed as she thought how her eagerness might be interpreted.
"We shall see," answered the Colonel gravely, and almost sadly. He was so much in love with this girl that a life in Capua with her seemed more desirable than the winning of Cannæ's away from her.
"Here is my fate," he said when he called on the following evening, and handed her two official documents, the one relieving him from his position as Military Governor, the other assigning him to the command of a brigade.
"Now you must go into the battle again," she said, making a struggle to preserve her self-possession.
"I am sorry,—on your account."
At this answer her effort at stoicism and maidenly dignity failed; she dropped her head and hid her face in the sewing work on which she had been engaged. This was too much for Carter, to whom love had been a rejuvenation and almost a regeneration, so that he was as gentle, virginal, and sensitive as if he had never known the hardening experiences of a soldier and a man about town. Sitting down beside his betrothed, he pressed her temples with both his hands and kissed the light, flossy, amber-colored ripples of her hair. He could feel the half-suppressed sobs which trembled through her frame, breaking softly and noiselessly, like summer waves dying on a reedy shore. How he longed to soothe her by grasping all her being into his and making her altogether his own! He was on the point of falling before the temptation which he had that morning resolved to resist. He knew that he ought not to marry, with only his colonelcy as a support; yet he was about to urge an immediate marriage, and would have done so had he spoken. Lillie would not have refused him: it would not have been in the nature of woman: what girl would put off a lover who was going to the battle-field? Nothing prevented the consummation of this imprudence but a ring at the door-bell. Miss Ravenel sprang up and fled from the parlor, fearful of being caught with tears on her cheeks and her hair disordered. Mrs. Larue entered, gave the Colonel a saucy courtesy, cast a keen sidelong glance at his serious countenance, repressed apparently some flippant remark which was on her lips, begged him to excuse her for a few moments, and slid out of the room.
"Confound her!" muttered the Colonel, indignant at Madame without cause, merely because he had been interrupted.
By the time that Lillie had dried her eyes, washed her face and composed herself so far as to dare return to the parlor, Mrs. Larue, ignorant of the good or mischief that she was accomplishing, was there also. Consequently, although Carter stayed late into the evening, there was no second opportunity for the perilous trial of a tête-a-tête farewell.
Next day he went by the first train to Thibodeaux. As commanding officer of a brigade he exhibited his usual energy, practical ability, and beneficent despotism. The colonels were ordered to make immediate inspections of their regiments, and to send in reports of articles necessary to complete the equipment of their men, with requisitions for the same on the brigade quartermaster. During several consecutive days he personally went the rounds of his grand guards and outlying videttes, choosing for this purpose midnight, or a wet storm, or any other time when he suspected that men or officers might relax their vigilance. In such a pelting rain, as if the Father of Waters had been taken up to heaven and poured back into Louisiana, he came upon a picket of five men who had sought refuge in some empty sugar-hogsheads. The closed-up heads were toward the road, because from that direction came the wind; and such was the pattering and howling of the tempest, that the men did not hear the tramp of the approaching horse. Reining up, the Colonel shouted, "Surrender! The first man that stirs, dies!"
Not a soul moved or answered. For a minute or two Carter sat motionless, smiling grimly, with the water streaming down his face and uniform. Then he ordered: "Come out here, one of you. I want to see what this picket is made of."
A corporal crawled out, leaving his gun behind him in the recumbent hogshead. His face was pale at his first appearance, but it turned paler still when he recognized his brigade commander.
"I—I thought it was a secesh," he stammered.
"And so you surrendered, sir!" thundered the Colonel. "You allowed yourself to be surprised, and then you surrendered! Give me your name, sir, and the names of your men."
Twenty minutes afterward a detachment from the reserve relieved the culprits, and marched them into camp as prisoners. Next day the corporal and the soldier whose turn it had been to stand as sentry, went before a court-martial, and in a week thereafter were on their way to Ship Island, to work out a sentence of hard labor with ball and chain.
On the midnight following this adventure Carter ordered the outlying videttes to fire three rounds of musketry, and then rode from camp to camp to see which regiment got into line the quickest.
The members of his staff, especially his Adjutant-General and Aid, found their positions no sinecures. Every night one or other of these young gentlemen made the rounds of the pickets some time between midnight and daybreak, and immediately on his return to head-quarters reported to the Colonel the condition of the line as regarded practical efficiency and knowledge of the formalities. If the troops fell in at three in the morning to go through the drill of taking position to repel an imaginary enemy, they had at least the consolation of knowing that some poor staff-officer had been roused out of bed half an hour before to disseminate the order. A staff-officer inspected every guard-mounting and every battalion-drill, and made a report as to how the same was conducted. A staff-officer rode through every regimental camp every morning, and made a report of its condition as to cleanliness. If the explosion of a rifle was heard any where about the post, a staff-officer was on the spot in five minutes to learn the circumstances of the irregularity, to order the offender to the guard-house, and to make his report to the all-pervading brigade commander. A false or incomplete statement he did not dare to render, so severe was the cross-questioning which he was liable to undergo.
"Did you see it yourself, Lieutenant?" the Colonel would ask.
"I saw the man cleaning his piece, sir; and he confessed that he had discharged it to get the ball out."
"Who was the man?"
"Private Henry Brown, Company I, Ninth Barataria."
"Very well, Mr. Brayton." (In the regular army a lieutenant is Mr.) "Now have the kindness to take my compliments to the Colonel of the Ninth Barataria and the field-officer of the day, and request them to step here."
First comes the commanding officer of the regiment in which the offence has been committed.
"Walk in, Colonel," says the brigade commander. "Take a seat, sir. Colonel, a rifle has been fired by one of your men this morning. How is that?"
"It was against my orders, sir. The man is in the guard-house."
"This is not the first offence of the kind—it is the third or fourth within a week."
"The fact is, sir, that the men have no ball-screws. Their rifles get wet on picket duty, and they have no means of drawing the loads. Consequently they are tempted to discharge them, notwithstanding the orders."
"Ah! You must give them the devil until they learn to resist temptation. But no ball-screws! How is that?"
"I was not aware, sir, of the deficiency."
"Not aware of it? My God, Colonel! Not aware of such a deficiency of equipment in your own regiment?"
"I am extremely sorry, sir," apologizes the humiliated Colonel, who does not know what might be done to him for such neglect, and who, although only three months in the service, is a conscientious officer, anxious to do his whole duty.
"Send up a requisition for ball-screws and for every other lacking article of ordnance," says the brigade commander. "I will forward it to head-quarters and see that you are supplied. But, by the way, how did this fellow get outside your camp-guard with his gun? That is all wrong. Have the goodness to haul your officer of the guard over the coals about it. Make him understand that he is responsible for such irregularities, and that he may get dismissed the service if he doesn't attend to his duties. That is all, Colonel. Will you take a glass of brandy? Good morning, sir."
Then, turning to the Adjutant-General: "Captain, make out a circular directing commandants of regiments to see that targets are set up in proper places where the relieved guards may discharge their rifles. The best marksman to be reported to regimental head-quarters, and to be relieved from all ordinary duty for twenty-four hours."
The field-officer of the day is now announced by the orderly.
"Come in, Captain; take a seat, sir. Are you aware, Captain, that a rifle has been fired this morning, outside the camps, in violation of general orders?"
"I—I think I heard it," stammers the Captain, taking it for granted that he is guilty of something, but not knowing what.
"Do you know who the offender is?" demands the Colonel, his brow beginning to blacken like a stormy heaven over the ignoramus.
"I do not, sir. I will inquire, if you wish, Colonel."
"If I wish! My God, sir! of course I wish it. Haven't you already inquired? My God, sir! what do you suppose your duties are?"
"I didn't know that this was one of them," pleads the now miserable Captain.
"Don't you know, sir, that you are responsible for every irregularity that happens within the grand guards and outside the camps, while you are field-officer of the day? Don't you know that you are responsible for the firing of this rifle?"
"Responsible," feebly echoes the Captain, not seeing the fact as yet, but nevertheless very much troubled.
"Yes, sir. It is your business, if any thing goes wrong, to know it, and discover the perpetrators, and report them for punishment. It was your business, as soon as that gun was fired, to find out who fired it, to have him put under guard, and to see that he was reported for punishment. You haven't attended to your duty, sir. And because the officers of the day don't know and don't do their duty, I have to make my staff-officers ride day and night, and knock up their horses. Here is my Aid, who has been doing your business. Mr. Brayton, give the Captain this man's name, &c. Do you know, Captain, why muskets should not be fired about the camps at the will and pleasure of the enlisted men?"
"I suppose, sir, to prevent a waste of ammunition."
"Good God! Why, yes, sir; but that isn't all—that isn't half, sir. The great reason, the all-important reason, is that firing is a signal of danger, of an enemy, of battle. If the men are to go shooting about the woods in this fashion, we shall never know when we are and when we are not to be attacked. Without orders from these headquarters no firing is permissible except by the pickets, and that only when they are attacked. This matter involves the safety of the command, and must be subjected to the strictest discipline. That is all, Captain. Good morning, sir."