I was again back at the “Cedars,” after the rapid and shifting scenes which I have endeavored to place before the reader.
The tragic incidents befalling the actors in this drama, had most absorbed my attention; but sitting now in my tent, with the newspapers before me, I looked at the fight in which I had participated, from the general and historic point of view.
That heavy advance on the Boydton road, beyond Lee’s right, had been simultaneous with a determined assault on the Confederate left, north of James River, and on Lee’s centre opposite Petersburg; and now the extracts from Northern journals clearly indicated that the movement was meant to be decisive.
“I have Richmond by the throat!” General Grant had telegraphed; but there was good ground to believe that the heavy attack, and the eloquent dispatch, were both meant to “make capital” for the approaching Presidential election.
These memoirs, my dear reader, are written chiefly to record some incidents which I witnessed during the war. I have neither time nor space for political comments. But I laid my hand yesterday, by accident, on an old number of the Examiner newspaper; and it chanced to contain an editorial on the fight just described, with some penetrating views on the “situation” at that time.
Shall I quote a paragraph from the yellow old paper? It will be bitter—we were all bitter in those days! though to-day we are so fraternal and harmonious. With his trenchant pen, Daniel pierced to the core of the matter; and the paper may give some idea of the spirit of the times.
I could fancy the great satirist sitting in his lonely study, and penning the lines I shall quote, not without grim smiles at his own mordant humor.
Here is the slip I cut out. The old familiar heading may recall those times to some readers, as clearly as the biting sentences, once read, perhaps, by the camp-fire.
* * * * * DAILY EXAMINER. * * * * * MONDAY MORNING OCT. 31, 1864. * * * * *
That is savage, and sounds unfraternal to-day, when peace and good feeling reign—when the walls of the Virginia capitol re-echo the stately voices of the conscript fathers of the great commonwealth and mother of States: conscript fathers bringing their wisdom, mature study, and experience to the work of still further improving the work of Jefferson, Mason, and Washington.
“I have Richmond by the throat!” General Grant wrote in October, 1864. In February, 1868, when these lines are written, black hands have got Virginia by the throat, and she is suffocating; Cuffee grins, Cuffee gabbles—the groans of the “Old Mother” make him laugh.
Messieurs of the great Northwest, she gave you being, and suckled you! Are you going to see her strangled before your very eyes?
In truth, if not held by the throat, as General Grant announced, Richmond and all the South in that autumn of 1864, was staggering, suffocating, reeling to and fro under the immense incubus of all-destroying war.
At that time black was the “only wear,” and widows and orphans were crying in every house throughout the land. Bread and meat had become no longer necessaries, but luxuries. Whole families of the old aristocracy lived on crusts, and even by charity. Respectable people in Richmond went to the “soup-houses.” Men once rich, were penniless, and borrowed to live. Provisions were incredibly dear. Flour was hundreds of dollars a barrel; bacon ten dollars a pound; coffee and tea had become unknown almost. Boots were seven hundred dollars a pair. The poor skinned the dead horses on battle-fields to make shoes. Horses cost five thousand dollars. Cloth was two hundred dollars a yard. Sorghum had taken the place of sugar. Salt was sold by the ounce. Quinine was one dollar a grain. Paper to write upon was torn from old blank books. The ten or twenty dollars which the soldiers received for their monthly pay, was about sufficient to buy a sheet, a pen, and a little ink to write home to their starving families that they too were starving.
In town and country the atmosphere seemed charged with coming ruin. All things were in confusion. Everywhere something jarred. The executive was unpopular. The heads of departments were inefficient. The army was unfed. The finances were mismanaged. In Congress the opposition bitterly criticised President Davis. The press resounded with fierce diatribes, pro and con, on all subjects. The Examiner attacked the government, and denounced the whole administration of affairs. The Sentinel replied to the attacks, and defended the assailed officials. One could see nothing that was good. The other could see nothing that was bad. Their readers adopted their opinions; looking through glasses that were deep green, or else couleur de rose. But the green glasses outnumbered the rose-colored more and more every day.
Thus, in the streets of the city, and in the shades of the country, all was turmoil, confusion—a hopeless brooding on the hours that were coming. War was no longer an affair of the border and outpost. Federal cavalry scoured the woods, tearing the last mouthful from the poor people. Federal cannon were thundering in front of the ramparts of the cities. In the country, the faint-hearted gathered at the court-houses and cross-roads to comment on the times, and groan. In the cities, cowards croaked in the market-places. In the country, men were hiding their meat in garrets and cellars—concealing their corn in pens, lost in the depths of the woods. In the towns, the forestallers hoarded flour, and sugar, and salt in their warehouses, to await famine prices. The vultures of troubled times flapped their wings and croaked joyfully. Extortioners rolled in their chariots. Hucksters laughed as they counted their gains. Blockade-runners drank their champagne, jingled their coin, and dodged the conscript officers.
The rich were very rich and insolent. The poor were want-stricken and despairing. Fathers gazed at their children’s pale faces, and knew not where to find food for them. Mothers hugged their frail infants to bosoms drained by famine. Want gnawed at the vitals. Despair had come, like a black and poisonous mist, to strangle the heart.
The soldiers were agonized by maddening letters from their families. Their fainting loved ones called for help. “Father! come home!” moaned the children, with gaunt faces, crying for bread. “Husband, come home!” murmured the pale wife, with her half-dead infant in her arms. And the mothers—the mothers—ah! the mothers! They did not say, “Come home!” to their brave boys in the army; they were too proud for that—too faithful to the end. They did not summon them to come home; they only knelt down and prayed: “God, end this cruel war! Only give me back my boy! Do not bereave me of my child! The cause is lost—his blood not needed! God, pity me and give me back my boy!”
So that strange autumn of that strange year, 1864, wore on. The country was oppressed as by some hideous nightmare; and Government was silent.
The army alone, kept heart of hope—Lee’s old soldiers defied the enemy to the last.
They called themselves “Lee’s Miserables.”
That was a grim piece of humor, was it not, reader? And the name had had a somewhat curious origin. Victor Hugo’s work, Les Misérables, had been translated and published by a house in Richmond; the soldiers, in the great dearth of reading matter, had seized upon it; and thus, by a strange chance the tragic story of the great French writer, had become known to the soldiers in the trenches. Everywhere, you might see the gaunt figures in their tattered jackets bending over the dingy pamphlets—“Fantine,” “Cosette,” or “Marius,” or “St. Denis,”—and the woes of “Jean Valjean,” the old galley-slave, found an echo in the hearts of these brave soldiers, immured in the trenches and fettered by duty to their muskets or their cannon.
Singular fortune of a writer! Happy M. Hugo! Your fancies crossed the ocean, and, transmitted into a new tongue, whiled away the dreary hours of the old soldiers of Lee, at Petersburg! Thus, that history of “The Wretched,” was the pabulum of the South in 1864; and as the French title had been retained on the backs of the pamphlets, the soldiers, little familiar with the Gallic pronunciation, called the book “Lees Miserables!” Then another step was taken. It was no longer the book, but themselves whom they referred to by that name. The old veterans of the army thenceforth laughed at their miseries, and dubbed themselves grimly “Lee’s Miserables!”{1}
{Footnote 1: It is unnecessary to say that this is not a jest or fancy on the part of Colonel Surrey. It is a statement of fact.—ED.}
{Illustration: THE TRENCHES.}
The sobriquet was gloomy, and there was something tragic in the employment of it; but it was applicable. Like most popular terms, it expressed the exact thought in the mind of every one—coined the situation into a phrase. Truly, they were “The Wretched,”—the soldiers of the army of Northern Virginia, in the fall and winter of 1864. They had a quarter of a pound of rancid “Nassau bacon”—from New England—for daily rations of meat. The handful of flour, or corn-meal, which they received, was musty. Coffee and sugar were doled out as a luxury, now and then only; and the microscopic ration became a jest to those who looked at it. A little “grease” and cornbread—the grease rancid, and the bread musty—these were the food of the army.
Their clothes, blankets, and shoes were no better—even worse. Only at long intervals could the Government issue new ones to them. Thus the army was in tatters. The old clothes hung on the men like scarecrows. Their gray jackets were in rags, and did not keep out the chilly wind sweeping over the frozen fields. Their old blankets were in shreds, and gave them little warmth when they wrapped themselves up in them, shivering in the long cold nights. The old shoes, patched and yawning, had served in many a march and battle—and now allowed the naked sole to touch the hard and frosty ground.
Happy the man with a new blanket! Proud the possessor of a whole roundabout! What millionaire or favorite child of fortune passes yonder—the owner of an unpatched pair of shoes?
Such were the rations and clothing of the army at that epoch;—rancid grease, musty meal, tattered jackets, and worn-out shoes. And these were the fortunate ones! Whole divisions often went without bread even, for two whole days. Thousands had no jackets, no blankets, and no shoes. Gaunt forms, in ragged old shirts and torn pantaloons only, clutched the musket. At night they huddled together for warmth by the fire in the trenches. When they charged, their naked feet left blood-marks on the abatis through which they went at the enemy.
That is not an exaggeration, reader. These facts are of record.
And that was a part only. It was not only famine and hardship which they underwent, but the incessant combats—and mortal tedium—of the trenches. Ah! the trenches! Those words summed up a whole volume of suffering. No longer fighting in open field; no longer winter-quarters, with power to range; no longer freedom, fresh air, healthful movement—the trenches!
Here, cooped up and hampered at every turn, they fought through all those long months of the dark autumn and winter of 1864. They were no longer men, but machines loading and firing the musket and the cannon. Burrowing in their holes, and subterranean covered-ways, they crouched in the darkness, rose at the sound of coming battle, manned the breastworks, or trained the cannon—day after day, week after week, month after month, they were there in the trenches at their grim work; and some fiat of Destiny seemed to have chained them there to battle forever! At midnight, as at noon, they were at their posts. In the darkness, dusky figures could be seen swinging the sponge-staff, swabbing the cannon, driving home the charge. In the starlight, the moonlight, or the gloom lit by the red glare, those figures, resembling phantoms, were seen marshalled behind the breastworks to repel the coming assault. Silence had fled from the trenches—the crash of musketry and the bellow of artillery had replaced it. That seemed never to cease. The men were rocked to sleep by it. They slept on in the dark trenches, though the mortar-shells rose, described their flaming curves, and, bursting, rained jagged fragments of iron upon them. And to many that was their last sleep. The iron tore them in their tattered blankets. They rose gasping, and streaming with blood. Then they staggered and fell; when you passed by, you saw a something lying on the ground, covered with the old blanket. It was one of “Lee’s Miserables,” killed last night by the mortars—and gone to answer, “Here!” before the Master.
The trenches!—ah! the trenches! Were you in them, reader? Thousands will tell you more of them than I can. There, an historic army was guarding the capital of an historic nation—the great nation of Virginia—and how they guarded it! In hunger, and cold, and nakedness, they guarded it still. In the bright days and the dark, they stood at their posts unmoved. In the black night-watches as by day—toward morning, as at evening—they stood, clutching the musket, peering out into the pitchy darkness; or lay, dozing around the grim cannon, in the embrasures. Hunger, and cold, and wounds, and the whispering voice of Despair, had no effect on them. The mortal tedium left them patient. When you saw the gaunt faces contract, and tears flow, it was because they had received some letter, saying that their wives and children were starving. Many could not endure that. It made them forget all. Torn with anguish, and unable to obtain furloughs for a day even, they went home without leave—and civilians called them deserters. Could such men be shot—men who had fought like heroes, and only committed this breach of discipline that they might feed their starving children? And, after all, it was not desertion that chiefly reduced Lee’s strength. It was battle which cut down the army—wounds and exposure which thinned its ranks. But thin as they were, and ever growing thinner, the old veterans who remained by the flag of such glorious memories, were as defiant in this dark winter of 1864, as they had been in the summer days of 1862 and 1863.
Army of Northern Virginia!—old soldiers of Lee, who fought beside your captain until your frames were wasted, and you were truly his “wretched” ones—you are greater to me in your wretchedness, more splendid in your rags, than the Old Guard of Napoleon, or the three hundred of Thermopylae! Neither famine, nor nakedness, nor suffering, could break your spirit. You were tattered and half-starved; your forms, were warworn; but you still had faith in Lee, and the great cause which you bore aloft on the points of your bayonets. You did not shrink in the last hour the hour of supreme trial. You meant to follow Lee to the last. If you ever doubted the result, you had resolved, at least, on one thing—to clutch the musket, to the end, and die in harness!
Is that extravagance—and is this picture of the great army of Northern Virginia overdrawn? Did they or did they not fight to the end? Answer! Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Charles City, every spot around Petersburg where they closed in death-grapple with the swarming enemy! Answer! winter of ‘64,—bleak spring of ‘65,—terrible days of the great retreat when hunted down and driven to bay like wild animals, they fought from Five Forks to Appomattox Court-House—fought staggering, and starving, and falling—but defiant to the last!
Bearded men were seen crying on the ninth of April, 1865. But it was surrender which wrung their hearts, and brought tears to the grim faces.
Grant’s cannon had only made “Lee’s Miserables” cheer and laugh.
These memories are not cheerful. Let us pass to scenes more sunny—and there were many in that depressing epoch. The cloud was dark—but in spite of General Grant, the sun would shine sometimes!
After reading the Examiner’s comments, I mounted my horse and rode into Petersburg, where I spent a pleasant hour in conversation with a friend, Captain Max. Do you laugh still, my dear Max? Health and happiness attend you and yours, my hearty!
As I got into the saddle again, the enemy began a brisk shelling. The shell skimmed the roofs of the houses, with an unearthly scream; and one struck a chimney which it hurled down with a tremendous crash. In spite of all, however, the streets were filled with young women, who continued to walk quietly, or to trip along laughing and careless, to buy a riband or some trifle at the stores.{1} That seemed singular then, and seems more singular to-day. But there is nothing like being accustomed to any thing—and the shelling had now “lost its interest,” and troubled nobody.
{Footnote 1: Real.}
“Good!” I said, laughing, “our friends yonder are paying us their respects to-day. They have dined probably on the tons of turkey sent from New England, and are amusing themselves shelling us by way of dessert.”
And wishing to have a better view of the lines, I rode toward Blandford.
Do you remember the ivy-draped ruins of the old “Blandford church,” my dear reader? This is one of our Virginia antiquities, and is worth seeing. Around the ruins the large graveyard is full of elegant tombstones. Many are shattered to-day, however, by the Federal shell, as the spot was near the breastworks, and in full range of their artillery. In fact it was not a place to visit in the fall of 1864, unless you were fond of shell and a stray bullet. I was somewhat surprised, therefore, as I rode into the enclosure—with a hot skirmish going on a few hundred yards off—to see a young officer and a maiden sitting on a grass bank, beneath a larch tree, and conversing in the most careless manner imaginable.{1}
{Footnote 1: Real.}
Who were these calmly indifferent personages? Their backs were turned, and I could only see that the young lady had a profusion of auburn hair. Having dismounted, and approached, I made another discovery. The youth was holding the maiden’s hand, and looking with flushed cheeks into her eyes—while she hung her head, the ringlets rippling over her cheeks, and played absently with some wild flowers, which she held between her fingers.
The “situation” was plain. “Lovers,” I said to myself; “let me not disturb the young ones!”
And I turned to walk away without attracting their attention.
Unfortunately, however, a shell at that instant screamed over the ruin; the young girl raised her head with simple curiosity—not a particle of fear evidently—to watch the course of the missile; and, as the youth executed the like manoeuvre, they both became aware of my presence at the same moment.
The result was, that a hearty laugh echoed among the tombstones; and that the youth and maiden rose, hastening rapidly toward me.
An instant afterward I was pressing the hand of Katy Dare, whom I had left near Buckland, and that of Tom Herbert, whom I had not seen since the fatal day of Yellow Tavern.
The auburn ringlets of Katy Dare were as glossy as ever; her blue eyes had still the charming archness which had made me love her from the first. Indeed her demeanor toward me had been full of such winning sweetness that it made me her captive; and I now pressed the little hand, and looked into the pretty blushing face with the sentiment which I should have experienced toward some favorite niece.
Katy made you feel thus by her artless and warm-hearted smile. How refrain from loving one whose blue eyes laughed like her lips, and whose glances said, “I am happier since you came!”
And Tom was equally friendly; his face radiant, his appearance distinguished. He was clad in a new uniform, half covered with gold braid. His hat was decorated with a magnificent black plume. His cavalry boots, reaching to the knee, were small, delicate, and of the finest leather. At a moderate estimation, Tom’s costume must have cost him three thousand dollars!—Happy Tom!
He grasped my hand with a warmth which evidently came straight from the heart; for he had a heart—that dandy!
“Hurrah! old fellow; here you are!” Tom cried, laughing. “You came upon us as suddenly as if you had descended from heaven!”
“Whither you would like to send me back! Am I wrong, Tom?”
And I shot a glance of ancient and paternal affection at these two young things, whose tete-à-tete I had interrupted.
Katy blushed beautifully, and then ended by laughing. Tom caressed his slender mustache, and said:—-
“My dear fellow, I certainly should like to go to heaven—consequently to send my friends there—but if it is all the same to everybody, I think I would prefer—hem!—deferring the journey for a brief period, my boy.”
“Until an angel is ready to go with you!”
And I glanced at the angel with the ringlets.
“Ah, my dear Surry!” said Tom, smoothing his chin with his hand, “you really have a genius for repartee which is intolerable, and not to be endured!”
“Let the angel sit in judgment!”
“Oh, you have most ‘damnable iteration!’”
“I learned it all from you.”
“From me, my boy?”
“Certainly—see the beauty of repetition in poetry.”
And looking at the damsel, I began to repeat—
The amount of blushing, laughter, pouting, good humor, and hilarity generally, which this poem occasioned, was charming. In a few minutes we were all seated again on the grassy bank, and Tom had given me a history of his adventures, which had not been either numerous or remarkable. He had been assigned to duty on the staff of General Fitzhugh Lee, and it was delightful to hear his enthusiasm on the subject of that gay and gallant officer.
“I tell you he’s a trump, old fellow,” quoth Tom, with ardor. “He’s as brave as steel, a first-rate officer, a thorough gentleman, generous, kind, and as jolly as a lark! Give me Fitz Lee to fight with, or march with, or hear laugh! He was shot in the Valley, and I have been with him in Richmond. In spite of his wound, which is a severe one, he is as gay as the sunshine, and it would put you in good spirits only to go into his chamber!”
“I know General Fitz well, Tom,” I replied, “and you are right about him; every word you say is true, and more to boot, old fellow. So you are cruising around now, waiting for your chief to recover?”
“Exactly, my dear Surry.”
“And have captured the barque Katy!”
“Humph!” quoth Miss Katy, tossing her head, with a blush and a laugh.
“Beware of pirates,” I said, “who make threats even in their verses,—and now tell me, Miss Katy, if you are on a visit to Petersburg? It will give me true pleasure to come and see you.”
“Indeed you must!” she said, looking at me with the most fascinating smile, “for you know you are one of my old friends now, and must not neglect me. I am at my aunt’s, Mrs. Hall,—uncle brought me a month ago from Buckland; but in the morning I shall go down to a cousin’s in Dinwiddie.”
“In Dinwiddie, Miss Katy?”
“Yes, near the Rowanty. My cousin, Mr. Dare, has come for me.”
“Well, I will visit you there.”
“Please do. The house is called ‘Disaway’s.’”
I bowed, smiling, and turned to Tom Herbert.
“When shall I see you again, Tom, and where? Next week—at Disaway’s?”
Tom colored and then laughed. This dandy, you see, was a good boy still.
“Well, old fellow,” he replied, “I think it possible I may visit Dinwiddie. My respected chieftain, General Fitz, is at present reposing on his couch in Richmond, and I am bearer of bouquets as well as of dispatches between him and his surgeon. But I am told he is ordered to Dinwiddie as soon as he is up. The country is a new one; the thought has occurred to me that any information I can acquire by—hem!—a topographical survey, would be valuable. You perceive, do you not, my dear friend? You appreciate my motive?”
“Perfectly, Tom. There will probably be a battle near ‘Disaway’s.’”
“And I’d better ride over the ground, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll do it!”
“Only beware of one thing!”
“What, my dear Surry?” asked Tom, anxiously.
“There is probably a conservatory at Disaway’s.”
“A conservatory?”
“Like that near Buckland, and the battle might take place there. If it does—two to one you are routed!”
Katy blushed exquisitely, smiled demurely, and burst into laughter. Then catching my eye she raised her finger, and shook her head with sedate reproach, looking at Tom. He was laughing.
“All right, I’ll look out, Surry!”
“Resolve on one thing, Tom.”
“What is that?”
“That you will never surrender, but be taken in arms!”
With which mild and inoffensive joke I shook hands with Tom, informing him where to find me; made Miss Katy a bow, which she returned with a charming smile and a little inclination which shook together her ringlets; and then leaving the young people to themselves, I mounted my horse, and returned to the Cedars.
All the way I was smiling. A charming influence had descended upon me. The day was brighter, the sunshine gayer, for the sight of the young fellow, and the pretty little maiden, with her blue eyes, like the skies, and her ringlets of silken gold!
When I again set out for the cavalry, a few days after the scene at Blandford church, the youth and sunshine of those two faces still dwelt in my memory, and I went along smiling and happy.
Not even the scenes on the late battle-field beyond the Rowanty, made my mood gloomy; and yet these were not gay. Graves were seen everywhere; the fences were broken down; the houses riddled by balls; and in the trampled roads and fields negroes were skinning the dead horses, to make shoes of their hides. On the animals already stripped sat huge turkey-buzzards feeding. My horse shied as the black vultures rose suddenly on flapping wings. They only circled around, however, sailing back as I disappeared.
Such is war, reader,—a charming panorama of dead bodies and vultures!
Turning into the Quaker road, I went on until I reached the head-quarters of General William H.F. Lee, opposite Monk’s Neck. Here, under the crest of a protecting hill, where the pine thickets afforded him shelter from the wind, that gallant soldier had “set up his rest”—that is to say a canvass fly, one end of which was closed with a thick-woven screen of evergreens. My visit was delightful, and I shall always remember it with pleasure. Where are you to-day, general, and good comrades of the old staff? You used to laugh as hard as you fought—so your merriment was immense! Heaven grant that to-day, when the bugles are silent, the sabres rusting, you are laughing as in the days I remember!
Declining the friendly invitation to spend the night, I went on in the afternoon; and on my way was further enlivened by a gay scene which makes me smile even to-day. It was in passing General Butler’s headquarters near the Rowanty. In the woods gleamed his white tents; before them stretched the level sandy road; a crowd of staff officers and others, with the general in their midst, were admiring two glossy ponies, led up by two small urchins, evidently about to run a race on them.
Butler—that brave soldier, whom all admired as much as I did—was limping about, in consequence of a wound received at Fleetwood. In the excitement of the approaching race he had forgotten his hurt. And soon the urchins were tossed up on the backs of their little glossy steeds—minus all but bridle. Then they took their positions about three hundred yards off; remained an instant abreast and motionless; then a clapping of hands was heard—it was the signal to start—and the ponies came on like lightning.
The sight was comic beyond expression. The boys clung with their knees, bending over the floating manes; the little animals darted by; they disappeared in the woods “amid thunders of applause;” and it was announced that the roan pony had won.
“Trifles,” you say, perhaps, reader; “why don’t our friend, the colonel, go on with his narrative?”
True,—the reproach is just. But these trifles cling so to the memory! I like to recall them—to review the old scenes—to paint the “trifles” even, which caught my attention during the great civil war. This is not a history, friend—only a poor little memoir. I show you our daily lives, more than the “great events” of history. That is the way the brave Butler and his South Carolinians amused themselves—and the figure of this soldier is worth placing amid my group of “paladins.” He was brave—none was braver; thoroughbred—I never saw a man more so. His sword had flashed at Fleetwood, and in a hundred other fights; and it was going to flash to the end.
I pushed on after the pony race, and very soon had penetrated the belt of shadowy pines which clothe the banks of the Rowanty, making of this country a wilderness as singular almost as that of Spottsylvania. Only here and there appeared a small house, similar to that of Mr. Alibi’s—all else was woods, woods, woods! Through the thicket wound the “military road” of General Hampton; and I soon found that his head-quarters were at a spot which I had promised myself to visit—“Disaway’s.”
Two hours’ ride brought me to the place. Disaway’s was an old mansion, standing on a hill above the Rowanty, near the “Halifax bridge,” by which the great road from Petersburg to North Carolina crosses the stream. It was a building of considerable size, with wings, numerous gables, and a portico; and was overshadowed by great oaks, beneath which gleamed the tents of Hampton and his staff.
As I rode up the hill, the staff came out to welcome me. I had known these brave gentlemen well, when with Stuart, and they were good enough, now, to give me the right hand of fellowship,—to receive me for old times’ sake, with “distinguished consideration.” The general was as cordial as his military family—and in ten minutes I was seated and conversing with him, beneath the great oak.
A charming cordiality inspired the words and countenance of the great soldier. Nearly four years have passed, but I remember still his courteous smile and friendly accents.
All at once, the figure of a young woman appeared in the doorway. At a glance I recognized the golden ringlets of Katy Dare. She beckoned to me, smiling; I rose and hastened to greet her; in a moment we were seated upon the portico, conversing like old friends.
There was something fascinating in this child. The little maiden of eighteen resembled a blossom of the spring. Were I a poet, I should declare that her azure eyes shone out from her auburn hair like glimpses of blue sky behind sun-tinted clouds!
I do not know how it came about, or how I found myself there, but in a few moments I was walking with her in the autumn woods, and smiling as I gazed into the deep blue of her eyes. The pines were sighing above us; beneath our feet a thick carpet of brown tassels lay; and on the summit of the evergreens the golden crown of sunset slowly rose, as though the fingers of some unseen spirit were bearing it away into the night.
Katy tripped on, rather than walked—laughing and singing gayly. The mild air just lifted the golden ringlets of her hair, as she threw back her beautiful face; her cheeks were rosy with the joy of youth; and from her smiling lips, as fresh and red as carnations, escaped in sweet and tender notes, like the carol of an oriole, that gay and warbling song, the “Bird of Beauty.”
Do you remember it, my dear reader? It is old—but so many good things are old!
Do you say that is not very grand poetry? I protest! friend, I think it superior to the chef d’oeuvres of the masters? You do not think so? Ah! that is because you did not hear it sung in the autumn forest that evening—see the ringlets of Katy Dare floating back from the rosy cheeks, as the notes escaped from her smiling lips, and rang clearly in the golden sunset. Do you laugh at my enthusiasm? Well, I am going to increase your mirth. To the “Bird of Beauty” succeeded a song which I never heard before, and have never heard since. Thus it is a lost pearl I rescue, in repeating some lines. What Katy sang was this:—
That was the odd, original, mysterious, incomprehensible poem, which Katy Dare carolled in the sunset that evening. It may seem stupid to some—to me the words and the air are charming, for I heard them from the sweetest lips in the world. Indeed there was something so pure and childlike about the young girl, that I bowed before her. Her presence made me better—banished all discordant emotions. All about her was delicate and tender, and pure. Like her “bird of bright plumage” she seemed to have flitted here to utter her carol, after which she would open her wings and disappear!
Katy ran on, in the pauses of her singing, with a hundred little jests, interspersed with her sweet childlike laughter, and I was more and more enchanted—when all at once I saw her turn her head over her shoulder. A bright flush came to her cheeks as she did so; her songs and laughter ceased; then—a step behind us!
I looked back, and found the cause of her sudden “dignity,” her demure silence. The unfortunate Colonel Surry had quite disappeared from the maiden’s mind.
Coming on rapidly, with springy tread, I saw—Tom Herbert! Tom Herbert, radiant; Tom Herbert, the picture of happiness; Tom Herbert, singing in his gay and ringing voice:—