r ^ V REMY ST. REMT: OB, THE BOY IN BLUE, BY MRS. C. H. GILDERSLEEVE. "Round his mysterious ME, there lies, under all those wool-rases, a p mcnt of Flesh, contextured in the loom of Heaven." SAP.TOB EESARTL'S NEW YORK: JAMES O'KANE, 126 NASSAU STREET. 1865. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S65, BY C. H. GILDERSLEE VE , In the Clerk's Office, of the U. 8 District Court, for the Southern District of New York. ij ttMe tone nave gti>en tntti- vc*t vet&ved to tnetr r ana wftc nai'e totted and 6u,/feicd chtung {fitter J t f / fl f ana at fatt wefU in tto/tcleJJ acAOtation vecau^e tiie voice tva<) fotever CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. AFTER THE STORM, - - CHAPTER XI. WITH THE ENEMY, ... CHAPTER XII. AT CHATTANOOGA, ... CHAPTER XIII. WHY REMY ST. REMY DISAPPEARED, NO SURRENDER, MARCHING, SECRET SERVICE, AMONG ENEMIES, HOKEY, JUNE 8, 1861, MELTED IN THE FIRE ASUNDER, IN BATTLE, 9 - 26 45 - 58 69 - 78 100 - 119 143 - 172 177 - 200 229 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. LOVE'S MUSKETRY, - . - 234 CHAPTER XV. NOT WHAT HE INTENDED, - 245 CHAPTER XVI. GATHERING TOGETHER, - 267 CHAPTER XVII. REMY ST. REMY'S STORY, - - 283 CHAPTER XVIII. HOW THEY MET, 302 CHAPTER XIX. AT CHATTANOOGA AGAIN, - 323 CHAPTER XX. ANGELS OF MERCY, - - 231 CHAPTER XXL WADING STILL, - 346 NOTE, 351 CHAPTER I. NO SURRENDER. " Yet will the old time Never return ! never those peaceful hours ! Never that careless heart, and never more, Ah, never more, that laughter without pain ; But I that languish for repose, must fly it, Nor save in doing, daring, taste of rest." BY a white fountain, midway between the homestead on the hill and the white shore of the sea, stood two, whose faces cast back broken reflections from the rest- less ripples in the deep marble basin, and the picture of their changed lineaments might, and perhaps did sug- gest a resemblance to their future, and send the thought thrilling through their hearts. Whatever they saw, or felt, was unspoken. Remy St. Remy's manner indicated a desire to end the interview. She had forced Jierself to an appearance of indifference. You might have imagined her next 10 THE EOT IN BLUE. utterance would be a ripple of sentiment, or a quaint conceit suggested by the unusual appearance of the sky and sea, but fate and not fancy, was in their coming words. Every syllable was from the soul. The man wore the look of one who had fought hard, and been vanquished. A stern purpose, once vitalized by hope, lay dead upon his face. You could see the pallor, and feel the quiver of the last agonising effort of subjuga- tion. It had been a brief contest, and was just ending be- tween these two magnificently matched spirits. Both were unconquerable, but the glow upon the woman's forehead, and the suppressed gleam of her eyes, proved that truth and justice claimed her as victor. The young man's dark eyes wore no look that an up- right soul sends forth, even in defeat. He had come from his southern home with not a doubt of success, and the pitiful drooping of his spirit shaped itself in attitude and features. Only the metalic ring of his voice told that he was Carryl Farnam, the proudest man of Tennessee, the humblest man in New England. The girl stood like a palpitating statue facing the sea. The far outlook of her still eyes rested upon the thunder- cloud bordering the horizon. She, only a child, a love- ly happy creature, a half year ago, but now she was lifted to the highest womanhood the grandest pinnacle of heroism, to meet the approaching storm. Not that THE BOY IN SLUE. \ J which her eyes gazed upon startled her soul, but the terrible one that faced her future, and whose thunders were tokens of death, and whose whirlwinds wasted houses, leveled tyrants, and wrested fetters, and yet she was gloriously affluent in resource, and rich in personal reliance, as the last threat and argument fell upon her ears. A young martyr, who had resolved to resist the rack with all vital and spiritual force, would have worn the deep calm of unutterable determination which transfigur- ed her face. " You will not go to your home with me, Miss St. Bern y ?" "I will not." " You will not attempt the journey alone, you cannot, dare not." " I dare I may. My future and yours is no longer in any wise blended. I cannot comply with a wish against which my highest nature revolts. You are de- termined upon rebellion to the best government, man ever knew and Carryl Farnam, if I ever loved you, and I am not sure that I did, I detest you now. What I may do, I do not know. If my course has in any wise seemed plain to me, you will not share it, and it would be useless for you to know." " Woman's mysteries," he said, with a sneer. " Once I abhorred both mysteries and subterfuges. I do not know if I do now, except as they are embodied in 12 THE SOY IN BLUE. yourself. Had you asked me before our last correspon- dence, and this interview, if a deception or silence was ever justifiable between ourselves, I should have said no, and perhaps been angered at you for putting the ques- tion. To-day there seems to be a revolution in all things, and in myself most of all. I do not know what I am, or what I may do, and how can I tell you, even if I choose to reply to questions you have no longer a right to ask. Before your disloyalty, my heart was a glass in which you could see yourself, and every thought of mine. To-day it is an alembic, and I cannot tell what it may precipitate. My crushed future holds worthier solutions than before I passed this trial. My heart re- sponds to something beyond repose and selfish luxury. Your patriotism is dead, and villany lives in its stead. I christen this new birth of yours by that name. I know you wish I were a man at this moment, and so do I. My patriotism is Procrustean. It may torture me till it is fitted to every act of my life. Don't interrupt me. I have nearly finished our last conversation. When I promised you my hand, I was a toy, and I pleased you. To-day I am a woman, and the daughter of an Unionist, as loyal as any man who calls this Republic, home. He has not told me this to change my estimate of you. I should have known it, if he had uttered no word of our poor insulted country. He has never written your name since he left me in France." THE BO T IN BL TIE, 13 " You call our affection and your promise nothing, when weighed against loyalty ?" " Nothing !" " I do not forget my birth-place, and its claims upon me. You have a girl's fancy, but you have a woman's heart. You will repent the bitter words of to-day, when it is too late." " Never ! My birth-place was in the United, not in the divided States. I never forget that. You can leave me now. A traitor will never find forgiveness, if he beg ever so imploringly. Remember this, Cairyl Far- nam, and one thing more. You take with you my prayers for your penitence, but not one heart-beat of affection. The dead never rise in this world. Remem- ber !" She turned from him with a strange quietness, a won- derful calm, and followed the pathway down the slope towards the sea. She looked as immovable as the marble Hebe at her side when she rested, turning no gaze backward. The fountain of her life had grown bitter, but its Marah was invisible. An hour passed, and her host, Colonel Berry, brought her a letter, but it bore no mark of home, yet she felt its contents, and the superscription was familiar to the eye of the colonel. " The last, I fear, until the storm passes. The very sky seems pitiful to-day, and the white Catalpa blos- soms have covered you as the birds did the lost children 2 1 4 THE BOY IN BL UK but you are not lost, you know. We will be only too glad to shelter and care for you if you will stay. Please don't be distressed. You used to look as if no cloud could blot out the sunshine of your faith and fancy. Don't let it go now, when we all need it so much, and you, more than ourselves. How it thunders, and how heavily the surf throbs and throbs on the rocks, as if its big restless soul understood the agony in the northern heart ! But you don't open your letter. Shall I leave you to face its contents alone, Miss St. Remy ?" For a moment her wonderful face quivered, and then she slowly unsealed and read the loving, but terri- ble tidings. Steadily her eyes followed the tracery of her father's hand, and then her white fingers closed over the brief message, and her future was silently shaping itself in her woman's brain. All that day's decline the strange girl sat motionless under the falling blossoms of this transplanted tree, whose roots had germinated in the garden of her childhood's home. Her hands tightened over her letter so closely that the color left their thin tips, and they lay like exquisite models carved from meerschaum. Only once during that time did she lift her splendid head, and then only to look answer to poor Dot, who came to say : " 'Pears like you'd growd dare, pretty chile, jes like dat black stun woman down in Massa St. Rerny's THE BOY IN BLUE. 15 flower patch, only you isn't black, course you isn't. You'se a nuff site whiter nor I wish you was dis day, chile. 'Spects you got sumfin in dat are letter dat spiles de red roses on your cheeks tell Dot." The young girl lifted her eyes, placed them silently u ['ion Dot, until the funny bit of blackness had retreat- ed, without turning, to the doorway of the mansion, and then, with a movement not found in gymnastics, threw her huge white apron over her face, and herself upon the marble floor, and rolled one way and then the other, as if she could manipulate herself into her usual jolly condition. Suddenly a bright thought struck her, which she expressed audibly, with a bit of wholesome philosophy. " Dot, you are a fool, and a nigger. Crying won't help any body. Marble floors has got rheumatiz in 'em. Dinners are best kept warm in a body's stomach. Mistis Brown says I'll be mancipated. 'Spose dat's nice, but I heap sight rather 'd marry Hokey. 'Spose I'se got to wait for dat. May be Hokey '11 be shot with a gun, or killed with a pistol, or sumfin. Guess I won't tink of dese tings though, 'till I'se had dinner anyway. Dey would spile my dispepsy if I got too hungry crying 'bout dat handsome Hokey. Now hold your tongue, Dot, dese white gals don't know noffin like as much 'bout feelins as cullud pussons does, 'cept my mistis." She wiped her eyes, righted her apron, and put on 1 Q THE BO 7 IN BL UE. what she called her " topish ways," and moved onward to the kitchen, imagining herself superior to any " white party," who took their meals outside the dining room. Her " topishness," however, cost the house-keeper a twinge of distress, as Dot's skirts swept by a vase from the library, and sent it shapeless to the floor. " De pesky ting broke it's own pesky self," was Dot's apology. No remonstrance changed the girl's form of expression or brought a penitential word. She thought all the Northern people were " Bobolition- ers," and she had caught the idea that the word meant, thieves of colored people. Therefore, she considered any wrong done to them justifiable. She was not adored in the kitchen, and, but that her stomach was of intense interest, she would have absented herself altogether. However, the memory of Hokey, nor the white face of her mistress, nor the broken vase of dainty china with exquisite coloring, disturbed her relish for dinner, and she was prepared to resume her grief with unimpaired digestive organs. The thunder pealed in the distance, but approached no nearer. The surf throbbed on in its rhythmical sor- row, and answered thought for thought in the spirit of the exiled white girl, and in its monotonous but cadenced sympathy, her palms loosened their grasp, and the numbness went as the roses came back to her finger tips. She gathered courage from the voice of the sea, and that day's communion had told her that, THE BO Y IN BL UK 17 even as its waves touched and washed all the homes of the children of man, so God's hand held every crea- ture. All who love and listen to nature are soothed and comforted by its voice, and she believed that some- where and some time upoii its bosom, she should rest with a reunited household, though weariness and watch- ing, and perhaps struggle, lay in long lines of suffering between. There was, she knew, too much intuitive delicacy in the hearts of these Northern friends to ask the contents of that last letter from the lovely Southland. She did not imagine how one heart longed to ask just one ques- tion, and dared not even with his eyes. The sun still shone high above, but the low black cloud continued to hang like a rim upon the further edge of the Atlantic. Moan after moan rose up from the waves, and now and then intonations vibrated from the black mass of electric vapor. Like a white crown upon a lonely headland, rested the home of Colonel Berry. There are few so charm- ing, though many are grander, in New England. Architectural taste has been of slow, and uncertain growth in America, but it had found complete manifes- tations in this harmonious structure. From its columned entrance to the shelly beach, stretched a terraced lawn, studded with graceful trees, tinted and toned by all the colors of progressive fruit- 2* 1 8 THE BOY IN BL UE. age, gold and green, russet and red, peeping out from nestling foliage with a glance of beauty, or boldly facing the sunbeams, and drinking perfection. Cedars wore their sober green, and Lombardy poplars skirted the distance, like giant watchers guarding the quiet, where the robins sung during the spring time, and the velvety bees hummed from the early tulip's coming to the white amaranth of the dead summer. Pebbled pathways set one's fancy thinking of white ribbons woven in and out of green tapestry, and car- peting the slope. The summer had throned herself right regally upon these New England hills which sloped so gracefully towards the ocean. In truth, her reign had half spent itself in exultant minstrelsy, but the orchestra of wild bird hymns failed to reach human ears, so pained were they with the drum beat and bugle call, which sum- moned brave men to victory or heaven. Colonel Berry had called together his thousand men, and tented them upon a meadow of his father's smooth- ing, where the white canvas cones dappled the green in sight of his mother's eyes. She was proud of the pic- ture, even through the pain in her heart, and her son, oh, if he could have taken one other love than her's he would hive been glad, even though the next dawn was to light 'iem on their way to the battle-field. He knew that Carryl Farnam had come northward in the disguise of a loyal man, to accompany Miss St. THE 1' IN BL UE. \ 9 Remy to her native home, before the pickets should in- terpose impossibilities to their transit. lie knew too, that this Southerner had possessed her promise to a marriage, and her love too, or at least her admiration. Women mistake one for the other sometimes, and per- haps Remy St. Remy was too young to discriminate, when the betrothal occurred. Carry 1 Farnam was young, proud, elegant and rich, and it had been a pleasant plan of exclusive families to unite these two. Both had been educated in part abroad, and both came back with a warm love for their own land. It was with inexpressible pain that they found so much dissension growing in their homes, but there was a ranker growth of strife springing in their hearts as they expressed each to each their thoughts, principles and purposes. Mis? St. Remy had exchanged no messages on politi- cal subjects with her absent father, but she held her own, having formed them unconsciously, as one does their opinions of good and evil. Had the message come to her that her household had turned traitor to its gov- ernment, and she must believe the testimony, she would have taken the intelligence with the same emotion, only bitterer, as would have followed the death of all that made life beautiful and welcome. This, however, she knew could never be, and no assurance could make her believe such an event possible,. save the audible words of her father. 20 THE BO F IN BL UE. That Carryl Farnam was a foe to his country, was a fact which had crept so slowly into her soul, that she was able to bend to the truth, and cast him out from all participation in her regard. Suffering that comes slowly, finds more endurance and patience than a quick blow, besides, she felt more for her country's wrongs than for her own. The hope of her life was gone, and she never questioned if another could rise in its stead. Now the parting with her old friend and affianced husband was past, she crowded into the brief hour the past and future, and but for the caressing voice of the sea that arose up and consoled her with a faith in the Infinite, she would have gone mad ! With this unseen strength, this inexhaustible balm, she forgot herself, and only remembered that in the morning a brave man was to go forth from his fireside and its strong arms of love and luxury, to die, if God willed, and she put her own sorrows by, and passed quietly into the presence of a pale, calm woman, who had consecrated her sacrifice by Clears, and in the silence and solitude of her private apartment but with smiles and cheer in the presence of her noble son and those who shared his fate. Not a film of the cloud that had surged through Miss St. Remy's life lay in her eyes, or upon her face, as she glided over the marble hall, and, with a merry voice, sang : THE BO Y IN BL UE. 21 " There is a mighty Nova-} of Bells Bushing from the turret" free; A solemn tale of Truthe it tells O'er Land and Sea. How heartes be breaking fast, and then Wax whole againe." She stooped, and left just the spirit of a kiss upon Mrs. Berry's brow, and then chirruped away of the omens of the sunshine on this last afternoon of the colonel's citizen life, and drew, oh, such delightful auguries from all that came from sky and sea. She was a very bird of beautiful prophecy all that purple twilight, and though Mrs. Berry knew by a woman's intuition that a heart was well nigh breaking under that musical twitter, she would not make it harder to endure, by observing the swan song. How many of our desperate griefs could be borne with patience, if we alone knew that the blow had fallen ! When the color had quite died out of the sky, when the thunder had threatened and then gone, and the astral threw its nebulous light over the elegant parlors, Colo- nel Berry came in for his last evening with his mother, and the one he loved better than all the world beside, though hopelessly, and with a wordless devotion. It was a strange evening. Mrs. Berry understood the young lady, and hoped for her son's future. But the colonel ! He could in a measure comprehend his mother's forced cheerfulness, but not the gay spirits of their guest. jo THE BOY IN BLUE. Breaking the silence at last, he said: " I hope you will remain with my mother in my ab- sence, for your friend, I perceive, has gone without taking you, as he said he intended, upon the first day of his arrival." " No, he did not take me. My father told me to await liis coming, as he should not remain in the seceeded states. That was his brief message in to-day's letter. I do not expect to hear again from him, but hope to see him soon, and my brother also. Neither will bear arms against this government, and both believe that much blood will come of this temporary separation. Mr. Farnam took my message to them to-day." " But you will remain here ?" " Don't tempt me to run away, by making me prom- ise to stay. You ought to comprehend human, and es- pecially woman nature better," and she ran her beautiful fingers over the pearl keyboard of a piano, and sang a verse of " Tim the Tacket." " A bark is lying on the sands, No rippling wave is sparkling near her ; She seems unmanned ot all her hands, There's not a soul on board to steer her." Turning quickly round, she said : " You are the pilot of this bark, and how can we tell where we will drift when you are gone? Don't ask absurd questions." Then her voice foil to that strange key that thrilled every fibre of his self-poised being, as THE SO Y IN BL UE. 23 if he were but a fleck of down upon the breath of her words. " You are going away, and the good God and His loving angels guard you. You are His messenger His warrior, and we are only the sparrows, but He has counted us, and will mark us that we do not fall. Good night. I shall see you from my window when you go forth. Your mother wants you entirely in these last moments." She gave him her hand in silence, then as she drew it away, she lifted the handle of his sword and touched it to her lips, and like a spirit was gone. When the colonel recovered his voice, he said : "Mother, you will let that girl share my place in your affection when I am away. She can never be to mo that which my heart demands, but I love her just the same, and so will you. Don't blame her. She was be- trothed when we first met, and does not imagine my do- votion to her, but you will care for her as if she were your child." " Yes, my son, always, if she will let me. But I don't like the glimmer in her eyes to-night. She is not a girl any more, but a woman to meet any fate heroic- ally. Poor heart !" And so they made common in- terest in the girl, and talked of her into the deep mid- night, and what the future might shape of the strange circumstances of her position. Colonel Berry knew that she had refused to go with 24 THE BO Y IN BL UE. Carryl Farnam, and took leave of him before the letter came, and he drew a world of hope from the event Miss St. Remy had intended he should overlook. In the morning he could see the waving of a white hand over the balcony, and he felt that a silent blessing followed him. He was of a proud New England fami- ly the last one of his name, save his pale sweet mother, whose love was divided between the graves ou the slope, and this one son. He was worthy of all the pride and affection she lavished, and in giving him to her country, she bestowed the bravest man, the ten- derest heart, and the strongest sabre-stroke in the Fed- eral army. Miss St. Remy found Dot coiled upon the floor, with her wool covered by her apron, and the same sort of philosophy that induced her to eat while her mistress fasted, sent her to sleep during the leave-taking down stairs. Dot was the envy of her mistress for a moment, and then came back the same determined and self-reliant ex- pression that had answered with more eloquence even than her words, the appeal at the fountain. Backward and forward she paced her chamber, stop- ped, looked at her face in the mirror, swept back her liair with her hands, pulled out the golden arrow with its diamond tips and feather of pearls, and let the long dark coil roll down upon the emerald green drapery o her attire, and said, half aloud, to herself: THE HOY IN BL HE. 05 " Deserted ! No, not that, but alone Remy and by your own choice thank God ! He thought you less than a woman to relinquish home and affection tor duty. Perhaps you are, but you have weighed Carry 1 Farnam and found him valueless! Go to bed, child. Plait your hair there is no one to admire its wealth or color no\v. You love praise too well, but girl, you love your country's honor better. You would have been a good and true wife to a soldier, if he wore the Federal blue but oh, what a rebellion you would have raised for an uniform of grey ! Somebody would have been mustered out, without waiting for military ceremony. You would make a petite soldier. Napoleon was about your size." She looked long and earnestly at herself, and then the big tears brimmed her eyes, and hid the beautiful face from her sight. Slowly she sank upon her knees and prayed for the protection of her people, and for the triumph of liberty. A deep calm fell slowly over her brow, and down her quivering lips, and stilled them into hope and trust. She disrobed herself, letting her sleepy woman take her rest, saying softly " I won't waken you, poor Dot. You have your sorrows to bear, and your heart is white with unselfishness." " My father, my father," came through her uncon scious lips, from the dream-land where she had gone, but a sweet faith rocked and soothed her soul even there. 4 2fi THE BOY IN BL UK. CHAPTER II. MARCHING. " Who serves for gain, a slave, by thankless pelf Is paid ; who gives himself, is priceless, free ! I give myself, a man, to God, lo, He Benders me back a saint unto myself." COLONEL BERRY fought a fiercer fight between duty and inclination in the grey of that morning than any bloodless battle that early dawn witnessed. He was brimming with patriotism, but oh, if he could only carry with him the certainty of safety to " the little saint," as he called Remy St. Remy in his heart, it would be so easy so easy to go! Would she wait for her father's coming in the shelter of his mother's care, or would it be his mission to tear her from the heart of Rebeldom, where he feared her woman's affection would lead her while he was on duty in the field 1 He rather hoped he might be called to follow a fate like this,and with his imagination all aglow with the thought. THE BO Y IN BL HE. 27 he was spared the pain of parting glances at the dear old hills about his home, and the beautiful bold cliffs, and low white shores where his boyhood drank faith, hope and courage, which was to lead him through fields of fellow men harvested by the sweep of death-dealing shot, and over floods lashing out human life in terrific surges, or silently wrapping them in an endless sleep. The morning went by, and, little by little, he forgot the troubled dream of the morning, and the white hand that evoked it, and a new world of care dawned upon him. From car to car he went, with a proud pain in his heart at taking so many noble fellow r s from their families, to what? Not the fate that fell on that Sabbath morning the last Sabbath upon the poor lads at Bull Run ! He was almost vain of his command handsome fellows ! and to think of leaving them upon the field ! Their rolicking jokes, old ones, repeated for the sake of old times, how old ! were uttered with grim efforts at smiles, but the voice was not false to the heart. That quivered and thrilled, not to fear, but to the prob- abilities of their fate. Not that New England soldiers carry away unwilling souls, but the thrilling story of disaster had sped over the land, and too many hearts were writhing in certain sorrow, and many were yet waiting for the possible tidings of loss ; and these constrained Northerners are tender and pitiful, albeit sometimes wordless to those 28 THE BO Y IN BL UE. who wait and grieve, and they feel too, the great throb- bing pain that indignation brings to loyal men, when they lift their eyes to the banner they have always reverenced. But merriment helped them bear it better, and so they jested over their future, and wondered who would come back again to the sweet homes where peace brooded always. The tented field, and the preparation for contest, the drilling under a scorching sun, and the bugle calls broke in upon their old ways and grooved habits, which seemed tame and monotonous in the retrospective. Close friendships were closer, and their hearts grew so big that there was room for a whole regiment in each. How they consecrated themselves to their country, and, perhaps, if the truth were fully told, they somehow mingled in a vague way, their colonel and country together, for they were proud in their love for him, the grand man ! The days about the Capitol were few, and letters went back to tell of love and safety, and then came the thrilling order to march ! It was deep twilight, and the morning's bugle would reiterate the startling order. Every man had complet- ed preparations, and the musings, which by some un- explained power, always come in the dark, fell upon the waiting men. Even the officers, with northern prompt- THE EOT IN BLUE. 29 ness, were ready, and felt the leisure almost painful, but pleasant memories " Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune," soon lured them to soldier's dreams. Colonel Berry sat alone in his quarters, with the re- membrance of home mingling with his pictures of the future, when his sentinel announced a visitor desiring an interview upon military matters. The graceful army salute, and the handsome face of the young man interested the officer directly. The young gentleman offered a letter, and stood with his lifted cap in the dim light of a swinging lamp, and for a moment was too conscious of more than ordinary scrutiny, but a will of unusual power kept his deep dark eyes steady, and the quiver that swept over his clearly cut mouth was held in subjection. Whatever thought crossed the mind of the colonel, it was quite obliterated by his surprise and distress at the contents of the note. " PHILADELPHIA, July 25, 1861. " COLONEL BERRY : " My dear friend: " I know this missive will pain you, but you will comprehend and pardon me. " The quiet of your beautiful home, only made my terrible anx- iety for the future and its possibilities unendurable, and I escaped, hoping to sooner join those who are dearer than anything save liberty. I am on my way to the frontier, feeling assured of my safety. When my father bade me await his arrival, I endeavored 4* 30 THE SOY IN BL US. to bo obedient, but it became impossible. With your northern calm, which comes by Christian culture, you do not comprehend the southern temper, and its ungoverned expressions. I can trust my father's coolness and determination, but my former friend, Ciirryl Farnam, has carried back to Tennessee a touch of passion- ate hate that may fire my home, and perhaps immolate the only two whom death has spared to me. He had the wickedness to write me his intended course, and while I hope, I have great fear. I would not have stooped to write ill of one who was once my be- trothed, but I could not otherwise excuse myself for want of com- pliance to the wishes of yourself, who I regard as a sincere and unchangeable friend. " The bearer of this note is an early 'acquaintance of mine, also an exile. He is true to the core of his heart, to the" cause to which you are now devoting yourself. For my sake, could you find him a position near yourself, I am sure you will do so. He is too young for active duty, even if he were strong. You can, if you choose, trust him to perform any delicate service, no matter how dangerous. He has been carefully educated, and would relieve you of many irksome cares if you feel disposed to trust him. He has means at his command to procure for himself any necessaries, and I have given him my beautiful saddle horse which gave you so much trouble to procure. I have no need for him now, and some- times you may be glad of a swift fide upon his back toward the enemy I will hope. " You perceive, I am writing as if the matter was settled, and Eingold had already assumed the position of aid and servant, so sure am I of your willingness to grant any favor I may ask, that is consistent with your duty. " You shall hear from me whenever it is possible, and God keep you safely in the storm of battle, and in the quiet of your tent, for your mother's sake and for your friends. "EEMYST. EEMY." For a moment he could only comprehend that she was gone, and through a desire to spare him pain, had neither told him how or when, and the contemplation was agonizing. He crushed the letter in his hand, and rising, faced the waiting stranger, and then remembered the wish the last one of " the little saint." THE BO Y IN L UK 31 He reached out his hand, and, with a tremulous voice, welcomed young Ringold, and with no formality of ar- rangement or questioning, said : " It is settled. If you will remain with me, I will make it a mutual servitude. A friend's friend is mine. Your duties will sometimes be to endure, more than to perform. Have you strength for long and rapid rides over the wild hills, and more especially through the swamps of Virginia?" " A Tennessean is cradled in the saddle. I think my endurance equal to even a hardier looking New Eng- lander. I could not, perhaps, swing a sabre as well, but I could hold a rein, or keep my saddle many an hour without weariness." " How long have you known Miss St. Remy ?" " Always. Our childhood was together. We are very nearly of an age. We were abroad at the same time. My father is an Unionist, and so is hers. It was her wish that I should be with you, and she proposed the plan, and even procured my pretty blue outfit, and gave me her beautiful horse, re-christening him for my service and for yours. She called him ' Victory' !" Colonel Berry looked earnestly at the handsome boy who shared so much of Miss St. Remy's care, and won- dered no more at her special interest in the lad, he was so delicately organized, and so intrepid in his appear- ance. His dark short curls and low white forehead ; his 32 THE BOY IN BL UE. deep earnest eyes which now and then opened wide with a flash like a lightning gleam over a summer cloud, and then closed into a soft quietude ; his beardless lips like cut coral over his pearly teeth, now tightening into en- ergy and determination, and then curling into a genial smile alternately. " Could you fight your southern people if the fate of war should bring you face to face with the enemy 7" The young brow drooped for an instant, and a white film fell over it like a veil of mortal terror, but it cleared like a mist in a morning wind, and the slowly lifted head grew firm upon his handsome shoulders, and the easy posture of his hands changed barely enough to bring the small compact muscle into relief, and his voice deepened, but not a quiver shook its music as he re- plied very deliberately : "I could defend myself, I could defend you against my childhood's dearest friend. I could send to a quick death the man who should make a secret warfare against our Union, but I could not fire a random shot against battalioned Tennesseans. You know there are many true hearts, who to save life and their households, have been marshaled into the ranks of the rebels. Op- portunity will prove them our friends." He paused a moment, and searched the face of his superior. The lamp was dim, and the colonel's hand half shaded his eyes. Suspense was unendurable, and the lad continued : THE BO T IN L US. 33 " You cannot think me disloyal because I utter such expressions of seeming sympathy with the South. Every drop of kindred blood I have, throbs in Southern veins. I am young, and stand alone on this side of the grand division of a once united country, and, Colonel Berry, I shall stand or fall where I now am. Do you believe this?" The colonel held out his hand again, and the sup- pressed words found eloquent expression in the sharp yet half withheld grasp which swallowed up the small palm of the young aid. " Your hand was formed for peace, and your words are human, Ringold, but there is power and principle in your voice and manner. I do not doubt you. I could not suspect your truth any more than I could suspect the loyalty and truth of the noble woman who sent you to me. I thank her for thinking of me, and you for coming. I had intended to select some one from the ranks to be near my person, but you leave one soldier more in my brave command. We move to the front at the reveille. There must be some military formulas observed in your movements, and they must be attended to to-night. I will not leave you behind. Have you all needful per- sonal preparations ?" " All. I beg pardon. I have a colored valet, and I do not know how to dispose of him. He is reliable, and can adapt himself to any position of servitude. He vas reared in the house, and can perform all requirements 34 THE OY IN ML UE. that could possibly be made upon him, and, except to keep silence, he is perfectly obedient. I gave him his choice between freedom and the South, and I cannot tell whether it was liberty or the promise he made never to leave me, that decided him. He gave his word to his mother, who was my nurse, to be mine always, if in his power, and since they parted, she has gone where there is no form or color, and the promise has become a su- pernatural compact. In France he was free and tempted. If you have use for him, he is strong and willing. His falsehoods are infrequent and always ludicrous, and his thieving has no temptations except in the form of orna- ments or table luxuries, both of which will scarcely come in his way." A moment's reflection decided the colonel, and the freed man was henceforth to be an appendage to their novel life. A few parting words, and the morning saw young Ringold with his blue tunic and short full pants in the saddle, and a long black plume fastened with a silver star to the graceful hat which shaded the boyish face of the young soldier. You would have guessed that a woman chose the cos- tume, so perfect and elegant in its detail, and been glad that strict regulations were not yet made, or if they had been brooded and hatched in military brains, had found no means of entire promulgation. Victory looked as if he, too, had enlisted. His hand- THE BOY IN EL UE. 35 some head was higher than usual, and his small neat hoofs touched the ground proudly, while his thin nos- trils dilated with the spirit of the warlike music to which he stepped. The night had been spent in sleeplessness by the young man, and even the servant kept his black eyelids wide apart while listening to military regulations and instructions. It was no easy thing to seperate these two who were bound by the tie of isolation and a common calamity. Jetty was to follow in the train, and when they en- camped, there would sometimes be leisure for giving now and then an hour to the comfort of each other. Jetty could not quite decide to be subject to another's order, and in his own mind he made a mental reserva- tion in his new vassalage, that he would give " Massa Ringold's boots the best licks, and his dinner de best care." The last interview was like that of friend with friend, as they were hereafter to be, though the inferior's ex- pressions only proved an equality of affection. " Remember, Jetty, our future depends very much upon how we do, and endure now, and how we help re- move our poor country's misfortune. You see, I talk to you as if you were as white as you are from this time free. You must act as if you were as white as myself. You will sometime thank me for making you a man," and a faint smile half lit up the face of the speaker and 36 THE BO Y IN BL UE. a broad grin quite illuminated the ebony of the listener, as both thought of the future with hope, and a bit of comicality in their positions. The ludicrous is so close upon the tragic, that a smile comes to strange and seri- ous positions sometimes. " Talk little, Jetty. Be obliging and helpful to all. You are strong, but if you get ill, or too weary, I'll look after you. Remember, Jetty, and God keep us both." " Amen ! De Lord can send a mighty sight bigger lot of trainers to ketch us if dese 'ere folks go for to carry us de wrong way. My ! Wouldn't Mamma Cleopatra flop her big angel wings obur us two if any- thing was goin for to ketch us ? 'Pears like I seed her shiny face now, lookin right out of a crack in de door of de hebenly kingdom. Mebby like it's only de mornin coming out of de sky, but she's dar, sure, and she'll keep a mighty sly watch of dese two chillen. Good by what ye call you, Ringold ? capin, or sumfin 1 Good by. Here goes my shoe after you." Ringold was touched, even comforted, by the weird faith of Jetty, and his face was lifted upward with a strange courage and hope.' The long line of infantry defiled over the river, across which so many had passed to death on the 16th and 17th of July, and whose fall lay like the cold invisible hand itself, upon a thousand hearts that must still beat on, dulled and heavy. All thought this, though thoy laughed THE EOY IN BL UE. 37 and made grim jokes of the military procession on the return from Bull Run. But there was a new commander now, young and en- ergetic, a man who said " We have had our last retreat. We have seen our last defeat. You stand by me and I will stand by you, and henceforth victory will crown our efforts." The general kept his word in spirit, but the power was withheld, and history shall pronounce sentence- upon the paltriness of personal ambition, and the inexpressible contempt of coming years shall be upon the recorded name of the man who prevented victory. The officers of the regiment were too much occupied with their cares, to give many thoughts to the " Boy in Blue," as he was designated, for want of a proper name. " How finely that young fellow by the colonel sits in his saddle !" said Captain Trissillian. " He and his horse look like one magnificent creation. Wouldn't they be beauties in bronze, eh ? I wonder where they were got up ? Enlisted last night, or joined by arrange- ment ? The colonel is as frank as a boy, and yet as mysterious as the black statue of Mnfmosyne. He's strange, but be is as true as the sun, and as courageous as the Wolfe of Quebec. He reminds me of that gen- eral, as he seemed to my boy's fancy, as I read of his life and death, and spelled out half the meaning through great tears. I suppose many of the world's best will 3 38 THE BO T IN L UE. fall in this shameless rebellion, and their names be flung to fame, like Caesar's rent mantle to the populace, to in- cite others to patriotic self-abnegation. Halt ! The colonel is coming back along the line, and the ' Boy in Blue' by his side. Handsome as a woman ! Looks like a foreigner. A lost prince, perhaps. Look at that boot ! Silver spurs !" Captain Trissilian was silent as the two rode by, and then forgot them in his attention to his company. He was a jolly fellow, full of merry life when there was no use for serious endeavour, but a worker in the world when the play was over. He was just the man for a soldier. He could and would find something to interest himself, and those about him, and make merriment of even nothing. He was not a happy man, for he had too vivid a memory of suffering, but he did not cast his cloud over others. There is no vacuity for some souls. They fill every space with beauty and every silence with music. Some- times the tones are minor, but always sweet. His mother had died at sea, after the exposure of wreck, and one of the seamen had taken the lad to his New England home, and given him all that it is gener- ally supposed a child requires, food, raiment and a school-master. He had never been tamed to the staid ways of the people who wished to be kind to him, an-1 they scarce expected it of him, though they longed to make him one of themselves. He had different blood, THE BOY IN BL HE. 39 and his foster-mother comforted herself by the remarka- ble truism, that " a robin couldn't be made into a ban- tam, it must have its song in the trees of a rosy morn- ing, and not just cackle down on the pebbles when it was going to rain." The terrible shock of wreck, and the writhing of the waves about his tender limbs then the separation from his only friend, produced a fevered brain, and after his slow recovery, he could recall too little of his past life to benefit those who would have sought to restore him to his friends, but were only glad that they could retain him in their own hearts. He seemed cast into their hands by the storm, a child of the sea. He remember- ed his name and that was all, and with a childish per- tinacity, would answer no other. Leon Trissilian be- gan, and ended his appellation. His foster-father and mother had written it with Luke, for a Christian prefix, and Barnes for a domestic addendum, but he was always seized with an attack of deafness whenever he heard the sound. It was his only offensive stubborn- ness, and though it caused many a sleepness night, filled with profound inquiries, self-instituted and always un- answered, after the true method of subjugation, the boj kept his name, and rewarded by affection and respect all their sacrifice of religious principle founded upon Solomon's precept. It is very remarkable that this one bit of advice should have been such a favorite, coming from such a man, whose theories nor practices would 40 THE iSOr IN BLUE. suit the advanced state of Christianity. Probably this sentiment is preserved as one does an ugly relic, simply because the ruin of which it was a portion, belonged to another age. If that sentiment about the rod could only be left in the antiquity where it belongs, there would be better and far manlier boys. There's a sermon at daylight, when the regiment is on the march ! But to go back for one word more, the good people of the village said he must be conquered or he was ruined, but had you seen his genial face, and heard the kindliness which filled the sound of his voice when he spoke to his men, or watched his Napoleonic outline and bearing, you would have been sure he was neither. His compact figure, crowned with a broad white full forehead, rimmed about and thatched over with short crisp brown curls, and dark clearly defined brows, fit- ting over deep blue eyes, that looked black when they were filled with emotion a lip that sometimes contra- dicted and sometimes confirmed the promise of power in the upper part of his face, but which was fully sub- stantiated by the testimony of a nose which was Roman to perfection, and might have made the great Napoleon dissatisfied with himself, even after Marengo. Don't be skeptical, for who is there who does not know an uncrowned hero, or a demi-god who will have no earthly association with the immortals, except in your own big heart and clearer perception ? Napoleons THE BOY IN BL UK 4 1 don't always find a command. Subalterns don't always find an opportunity for recognition. There are greater men in the ranks of the Northern army to-day, than have ever worn an epaulette or even a chevron. Be- lieve this. The ranks hold the victories in their staunch hearts, and muscular arms. Presently, back rode the colonel toward the head of the line of infantry, and halting for a word with Captain Trissilian, he beckoned to his aid, and presented the two, who, in his admiration, ranked highest of all that band of noble fellows. Admiration recognizes no period for its growth. The captain had the root of a lifetime in his superior's heart, but the other's position was of a few hours' exist- ence yet equally strong, though not alike. The captain's ungloved hand was instantly extended, forgetting that the military salute which returned his recognition, was all that was convenient or conventional on such an occasion. His smile of pleased appreciation was unreturned by young Ringold, but it made the cap- tain's glance the keener, and his quick instinctive per- ceptions saw only dignified reticence and sorrow, where others would have perceived hauteur. " I will be that boy's friend always. He ?an depend upon . this soldier, poor lad !" was his remark to Lieu- tenant King, when the blue aid was out of sight. The colonel's adjutant looked with rather an unhappy fancy upon this strange addition to their suite, but his 3* 42 THE BO Y IN BL UE. face cleared after a few explanatory words from the colonel, and he tried in vain to be social and communi- cative to the lad. " Too deep a hurt somewhere, for me to cure," Sur- geon Ainslee said, after an attempt at friendliness. " The wound bleeds internally. Hope I shan't have many such in this campaign. They are almost incura- ble. I saw some such after Inker man. They all died. Had one case that kept sleep out of my eyes many a night, thinking it over. This one was pitiable fetched in for dead. Found life, and brought it back to stay a few days, but there was not any wound on the surface, at least no blood. Gave wine and nourishment, but the patient would not, or could not swallow. Couldn't give much special care, there were too many moaning for help, and this one was silent, and except for the way the lip tightened, and the eyes turned away, should have thought him comfortable. Found him dead one day, and wishing to satisfy myself that it had been no want of attention on my part, I examined the body and found" here the surgeon covered his face with his hands " a young girl. She had papers upon her per- son that explained. I told you once of Sergeant Mill- wood, of the 87th, how he fell with the colors in his handsome white teeth, having lifted them from the grasp of a fallen ensign. He, brave fellow, had been wounded in the neck, and his hands and garments were dripping with blood, but still he fought on, and when TEE BO Y IN BL UE. 43 the colors fell at his side he lifted them, for the hand that held the staff was his sister's. She saw death com- ing to his faceand she fell, but there was no wound except in her heart. I could not have saved her, but 1 saw her buried in a box with the sergeant. It is the one good thing of my life. I know the colonel will cure that lad if anybody can. He cured me of something worse the winter we were in Leipsic together, and I followed him to this country as a spaniel would his master. I'd die sooner than leave Colonel Berry. There hasn't been many such men finished. Nature gets in such a hurry- sometimes, that she leaves her work in a very incomplete condition. Nothing requires retouching about that man. I am glad I found him. He keeps my faith firm in human goodness on this earth, which, by the way, is a very good sort of a one better than on the other side of the salt pond, let me assure you. That is too old. Its sins have festered, and its evils are contagious epidemics. Sporadic wrongs spread here though, faster than the preachers can hinder. Tell you what, Mr. Chaplain, you'll have to be a dead shot, to keep down the enemy in camp. You are fresh, and don't know what soldier-life generates. It's a big crucible, and a sure one. The gold will show and there won't be so much as you calculate, either. Am sorry to say it,but I know. There's Trissilian, no dross about him. Hope he won't be shot. Should hate to take a leg off that man. That boy looks like the captain, only their color 44 THE BO T IN BL VE. is different. Both are Frenchmen, or I'm no judge of nationality, and both trumps, beg your pardon, I am not much used to the clergy, that is, the American style of cloth. . The English chaplains are the jolliest and laziest, but I wouldn't like to say, the best set of men in Her Majesty's service. If I had no self-respect, I'd like to wear a gown on some outpost of the British army in peace. Trumps, is a familiar expression to the parson on the other side." "March," had only meant that Colonel Berry's troops should enter Virginia, and take a position on Arlington Heights, for a time, but it was a forward movement, and they were to be at the out-post of a long line of hastily constructed fortifications, and the outer guard to the Nation's Capitol. Camp life began here in holiday style, but the men were restless in their idleness, and the chaplain did have enough to do, and he was not a " dead shot," so Colonel Berry had double duty to perform to command and drill his men, and keep the chaplain in clerical self-respect. THE BOY IN SLUE. 45 CHAPTER III. SECRET SERVICE. "I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, It8 lips in the field above are dappled with blood red-henth, And red-ribbed ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, And Echo there, whatever is asked her, answers 'Death !' " RINGOLD said this over a thousand times to himself in those days so idle to him in his impatience. Others drilled, paraded in dress uniform, performed sham bat- tles, and did many things to fill the dread monotony, but except the writing, and keeping Victory within a curb, and, now and then, a long tour of inspection with the colonel, there seemed nothing, absolutely nothing. To be sure, the little touches and attentions he gave to his officer's portable home, occupied, now and then, an hour, but this was so little in the days the long days of suspense. The delicacy of Colonel Berry's tent proved that nothing could crowd the sesthetic out of Ringold's nature, any more than the occupant could 46 THE BOY IN BLUE. thrust the "Boy in Blue" out of his heart. Mosses dotted the floors, and winter foliage hinted a dream of blossoms by their graceful minglement of form and color. Ringold's own tent, with its white-fall looped back with scarlet tassels when the sunshine came for a visit, and the spotless cover to the camp-bed, with its close snowy drapery falling at night-time about its tiny pro- portions, and the folded cot of Jetty, ready to do guard duty before the entrance when the master slept, told the story of refinement that no circumstance could change, however readily he might brave trial or endure the hard life of a soldier. Whether he was a hero of choice or circumstance could not be judged by the contrast between his tent, and its tiny round table of exquisite bits of china, upon which Jetty served delicate food at odd unemployed hours, and the flash of eagerness with which he under- took a perilous and wearisome expedition. No courteous urging ever induced him to accept an invitation to dine with an officer. Some thought him timid, till his haughty bearing contradicted the thought, and all felt his silent endurance of some mysterious sorrow. Now and then a storm of Jetty's conjuring, was to lull, and a sermon to follow. Besides, there was a lesson in the primer every day, for which Jetty dressed in the full uniform of an immense brooch and three bright THE BOY IN BL UE. 47 metal rings, and called it dress parade, or inspection drill, and afterwards informed any one to whom he dared offer a remark, that he was detailed. This made up the days. Jetty felt almost white when he had mas- tered the soft book, and arrived at hard covers, and thought of becoming a missionary to the heathen white people of Tennessee, who could not read, and who ex- cited his sympathy and contempt. A strange and strong friendship had grown up in these months between Captain Trissilian and Ringold though reticent upon the part of the latter, but full of frank confidence from the captain, who quite overlooked the way in which the boy covered the past in his his- tory, because he too, could go back in memory to a time of which to utter a word would bring fearful pain. The captain never mentioned his own family relations, and all the more pitied the silence which lay over the past in the lad's life. The surgeon sometimes speculated upon the " Boy in Blue," and brightened a little, and said he was mend- ing, but oftener shook his great tumbled head and put his forefinger over his own left breast pocket, remark- ing with a professional tap : " Here, chronic. No help from surgeons or physi- cians. Cases of this kind are always beyond medical or surgical comprehension. Needs active life. Will die in this waiting, but the general can't move, they won't let let him, the cowards ! Wonder he don't die 48 THE BO T IN BL UE. too, or resign. Chronic inactivity is at the capita], and the cabinet have it terribly. Wish they would send for me. Something acute would take place in twenty- four hours." They didn't, and so the autumn crept over the city, surrounded with white canvas cones, covering idle men, longing for anything rather than stupid stillness, but the time was not all lost, though some fainted and fell even at rest, and were sent home for burial. It was bitter cold in the earliest of the winter weather, and the moonless night sank over the blue ridge of Vir- ginia, and left only the glimmer of the white frost, and the clear lines of starlight to make visible the pathway from Washington to Leesburg. It is a wild delightful route in the summer, when peace and pretty blossoms, and the gurgle of innumera- ble streams make beauty and music all the way ; but at night, with cold and clustered pickets, and darkness and silence, with the enemy before, and the bold bluffs between one and safety, there is, perhaps, not fear, but a strange inclination of the heart to drum out a retreat if the will submits; but it did not, and a bold rider crept cautiously up the cliff and down the road towards Leesburg. A swift light hoof trod into the brown earth the brittle blades of grass, and made scarce a sound. Into the woods at last the rider entered, and dismounting, threw the rein loosely over the neck of THE BOY IN BLUE. 49 his animal, and tying a knot in the scarlet ribbon, stroked his sides and uttered a few low pet words, and laid his head close up to his soft glossy mane, and then with a keen look to shape the dim surroundings in his memory, should he ever return again, started for the distant camp-fires. Once only he stopped and looked back into the darkness of the thick wood, with a shud- der of pain at separating from the mute partner of his perils, then for a moment turned back and caressed the dumb friend, while the dull throbbing agony at his heart was tolling the old peal of wordless suffering which he thought might be hushed for ever this night, or be allayed in part, by absorbing service. It was a wonderful fate that led him back into the shadow, for but a moment elapsed when from a sharp turn in the road, a guard of mounted pickets galloped by, as if taking a large circle around their encampment. An inspiration flashed through young Ringold's thoughts. He led Victory from his hiding place, and facing the camp, gave a signal which the animal com- prehended as fully as if he carried a soul in his hand- some heart, and had received a military order. Swiftly he clattered over the frozen wajs, with a marvelous flourish of limb and a keen relish for the seeming free- dom of secret service. Ringold sped after, and with a hurried order to the sentinel to stop the flying animal, which he knew 5 50 THE BOY IN BL UE. neither would or could be obeyed, he passed without the usual cry of " Halt ! Countersign !" which had been the dread of his expedition. All the soldiery were long since in their blankets, and dreaming of peace and the better days gone by, but the rebel General Evans' tent was lighted and filled with consulting officers. As if Victory was guided by the will of his master, he made a circuit around the sentinels and passed to the rear of the lighted tent, turning now this and now that way in the darkness, and was visible only here and there as the camp-fires shone upon his ebony figure ; but the music of his flying hoofs kept his locality dis- cernible. After a time he was silent, and the sentinel's thoughts went back to his morrow's chances, as each day held a promise of something that startled his tired fancy into a momentary thrill, and then died into stupor. If he thought of the supposed dismounted picket, it was to conclude he had captured the animal and joined his party. Close to the tented home of the commanding officer, where a small hand could lift its swaying borders, and look into the faces of the consulting group, lay young Ringold. It was his first secret service. He once detested such modes of circumvention, but times had changed, and necessities made contemptible acts in peace, noble ones in war, and such a war too, as THE BO Y IN BL US. 51 our own ! He had been too late to hear the leading pur- poses the initiatory of their movements, but the con- certed plans lay in ink upon the camp table. Dare he risk the return of the pickets by waiting till General Evans had fallen asleep ? There was a strange quiver in his heart as the picture of his fate floated over his vision, but the future ! He must forget the present and take the risks. He thought of his father, who he feared was lying in a confederate cell, and his white teeth set together firmly, and his small hands sought the touch of his side-arms, and he lay still, and patient upon the fro- zen earth. An hour bore a century's dull weight of time, but the long draught of nightly poison was swal- lowed be each officer a rough parting word was said, and sleep finished them for that night, and thrust tri- umph away from their arms forever ! Slowly, and dreamily, the sentinels paced backward and forward, and as slowly the lithe figure crept past the opening of the tent, and swiftly through the parted can- vas, with not a rustle gathered the papers as noiselessly but as deliberately as if they were strewn fragments of tender thought which one half resolves to bury in the blaze, and yet the reluctance to part this one tangible connection with a broken life, holds the hand. Perhaps for a moment the thought that amnesty to political pris- oners would save his household, if this plan which he held in his throbbing palm were successful, made him stand under that swinging lamp irresolute, and forgetful of 52 THE BOY IN BLUE. the danger of his position, but the temptation passed, and he said in his soul : " Not at such a price !" and dropped to his old posi- tion, and crept cautiously out into the night. Scarcely had he passed the patrol when he heard in the distance the coming of the mounted guard. Life or death was in the next two minutes, and more than the value of a million lives and deaths lay in the same brief space of time. A low quick call a mingling of the ring of other hoofs with the advancing group, and sooner than the sound Halt ! could be given, Vic- tory stood by his master and the saddle was reached, and thea a fierce rattle of sentinels' musketry the flash and thud of bullets sounded the second halt ! with terrible emphasis, and then more great drops of lead patter on his pathway, but a strong arm shields him he is mailed, steel-plated by the God of Battles for future glorious purposes, and the deathly hail does not reach him. The mounted ten, follow quickly, but their worn animals were never christened by an Union woman, and consecrated to God and her country. They pushed their sharp spurs rowel deep into the flanks of their horses, but the flying Blue-bird swept over the space with an appalling speed holding the white treasure in a close grasp, and keeping the knotted rein in the other 'till near the bluff terrible Ball's Bluff! and then thrusting his filled hand into the breast of his tunic, tightened his girdle. TEE BOY IN BLUE. 53 Down the bold steep he sped, but the riders behind were gallant fellows and used to the wild ways of a wilder south country, and dared anything that man dare do. They sought after him with the last roused ener- gies of blooded hearts, and the terrible fear of what might come of this bold night-raid to the Leesburg en- campment. One brave fellow led the rest by a dozen rods, and when the swift current of the Potomac would seem to be a barrier over which no man would dare venture, the loose reins of young Ringold expressed the will of a fearless soldier, and a plunge into the tide, a moment's sinking, and then a struggle for life and land. Never faltering, the white curl of the eddies held their progress, but not entirely. The cold leap chilled only the outer life, the heart beat quick and strong. Death must call some helping element to conquer these two. Life would not be plucked out by the anger of the water which whirled them down toward the end of the distant island. The moon, full, round and white, seemed like the stare of a mid-day sun, as it stood suddenly upon the forehead of the mountain. Three times they tried to gain the shore, and fell back into the hurrying water. Then, with a bravo ! from his master, the horse stood with every muscle rounded out, upon the firm land, a hero. Victory ! Ringold's heart beat too quick with the swift ride, and the swifter thoughts of the last hours to be con- 5* 54 THE BOY IN BL UK scious of the chill of his plunge, and he felt in his breast for his wealth of knowledge, and finding it safe under his rubber blouse, he became conscious that another was leaping upon the beach a little further down, and a cry of agony followed, as of one in deadly peril and deadly need. He looked across the hundred yards of swift water and saw the group waiting upon the other shore. What was the sound ? Human, surely. He forgot all in quick humanity, and riding down the slope to a lower point, he saw a hand grasping an overhanging laurel, but a horse was drifting down the rapid river. When Ringold was sure the laurel was all that was required, he drew his revolver from its belt, and wait- ing 'till the unhorsed soldier was upon the firm earth, he gave the order to surrender. " Why not ?" was the half-sullen yet facetious an- swer. " Those paltry fellows might have followed, and then the order would have come from another com- mander. They grew too far north they are cowards." " I am a federal soldier. Am I a coward ? Speak it, if you dare !" " Rather an unfair question, when I have been under water. If rny powder was dry, we'd try a target. I'd take you, and I am sure you would be welcome to make a bull's-eye of me. It's devilish cold, and a trifle wet. I don't mind if you fire now. My thoroughbred has gone to a horse heaven, and I am very little conse- quence to the confederate service without him. I THE BOY IN BL UE. 55 brought that beast from Tennessee, and he hadn't a superior among even the soldiery, not to mention the animals, who have been conscripted. Come, if I am your prisoner, give the order to march." There had been a swifter flight of thought in the mind of Ringold than the whirl down the bluffs, while that strange and unmistakable voice rang upon the early morning wind. He went back to his beautiful home and sat under the shelter of the dear old roof, and peace was there, and merry groups were knotted about the hospitable rooms, but the merriest there, the best of all those good fellows had been this one, and his marvelous tones had sent contagious laughter rippling from every lip. " Carryl Farnam, you are the prisoner of a Tennes- seean, and a loyal one. You do not know me, nor will I tell you my name. I would not risk being labeled spy, and advertised in your wicked journals. I may wish to do my country secret service again, and I should not like a description of my person, and you may thank fate and not myself, for liberty. I shall leave you. Good morning, sir." " For God's sake give me one moment. I am alone. You need not fear me." " Fear you ! I do not know what the word means. Would I be here to-night if I did ? You, poor brag- garts, claim the chivalry of the land claim even superior heroism in your beasts. Mine reached the 56 THE BOY IN HL UE. shore with northern blood and northern breeding, while yours perhaps it would have been better if you were with him. Sometime we may meet again, and if we do, I'll tell you of this night, and, remember, you were in my power once, and my powder was dry !" Ringold crossed Harrison's Island, and once more gave Victory the rein, and a plunge into the stream, wider by double the distance than the last perilous cros- sing, but it's a still, sluggish expanse that was navigated with safety. " He carried a pass from the commander-in-chief, and hurried down the Maryland side of the river, a weary ride of thirty miles and more, and found General McClellan waiting his return, or perhaps grieving over the probable fate of the brave young soldier. The interview was brief, but the plans of the enemy whitened the lips of the general, and when he would have thanked the lad he could not utter a word, but his silent grasp of the little hand, was eloquent. The drafts and plans and orders brought from the enemy by the Boy in Blue, saved our National Capitol ! History will reveal how it all happened, but it would be a useless risk of life to explain it now. Carryl Farnam trusted to the dimness of the dawn and the deep shadow of trees which lay where the moon- light could not touch, and returned by the help of his fellows in the full day, a hero ! for following the young THE BO Y AY BL UE. 57 spy, who he claimed to have thrust under the swift cur- rent, and saved the grand army's strategy from expo- sure. He was promoted to a colonelcy for bravery and important service. For months there had been seeming idleness in and about the beleaguered city, but it was a needed linger- ing. There was a great army of our enemy only waiting for a time that never came, when their intentions could be carried out. Every feint was comprehended by what seemed to them, a supernatural information. It was at this time that McClellan was christened the " Little Devil" by the rebels, but his supernatural perceptions could have been explained by the Boy in Blue. 58 THE BOY IN BLUE. CHAPTER IV. AMONG ENEMIES. " There rises in my heart an awful fear, Lest from those evils darker evils come, For heaven exacts for wrong the uttermost tear, And death hath language after life is dumb." IT was early spring, and yet the deep valleys of the Tennessee river were draped in blossoms, and flushed with the promise of the coming summer. Upon the mountains there were hiding places where the winter airs yet lingered, but the sunshine stationed its videttes at the very outposts, to signal and guard the buds that opened their sweet eyes too soon. Tenderly had nature cradled the children of this val- ley, but they had grown into rebellion, as if the wicked spirits of the air had looked down upon the beautiful land and entered and possessed its inhabitants. It will never be comprehended unless the old faith in retribu- tion makes these strange manifestations of evil under- stood. There are laws which must be obeyed laws of hu- THE BOY IN BL UE. 59 manity if one of which is broken, the after years will inevitably punish. Chattanooga was built upon wickedness, and justice has meeted punishment. The marshaled hosts of seces- sia have fallen upon its bosom, and victorious federal troops have trodden them into the dust. The land has been flooded with the blood of brothers, and its crescent of hills been red with the tide of ebbing life. Its val- leys have been slippery with the slime of festering soldiery, and loathsome with the pestilent odor of death. Haggard eyes and wild hollow voices have looked and called unanswered to the sleepless heavens for help. Languid lips have sobbed in vain for one drop of water have called in such fearful agony for a touch of a far off hand that the distant heart leagues away, has lifted itself, and answered, and then wondered who asked for them. When the voice was remembered, the space could not be annihilated. The sky was filled with the glare of cannon, and the mountains answered each other with the doom of a thousand men, in a word. Broken trees, maimed in mid glory, their swaying arms rent away and hurled in wild wrath at the valley whose old name was for- gotten. The crimson rain became a crimson drouth, and the wild agony was stifled in dreary, lonely deaths. Is the retribution completed? Only the Avenger knows. The Cherokee Indians once held Western Georgia and 60 THE BO T IN BL UE. bordering lands upon the north and west, and they were theirs, guaranteed by Congress. Churches and schools, farms and cattle, spread over the best slopes of this lovely country. Chattanooga was their best and proud- est village. They had grown to love the pacific ways of civilized men. They had made the white man's God their own, and worshipped Him with as deep a veneration and af- fection. Their children grew worthy of the change, and their dead strewed the mountain sides with Christian commemorations. But the white people coveted the rich acres and the navigable rivers, and our government was false to her promises, and the helpless red men were uprooted and swept into a strange wild land, where many perished miserably from want and exposure, but more, from that baneful aching of the heart, that longing for home and the peaceful surroundings that made life a joy, and not a burden. Upon a slope of Mission Ridge stands a marble shaft like the white finger of wrath, marking the burial spot of Wooster, their spirit guide, and their leader in the new way, that had become so pleasant. Brainard is the forgotten name that once designated Chattanooga. It was worthy the apostle for whom it was christened in its elder days, and it became worthy the fate that fell like a fulfilled prophecy upon it, because of broken promises. There is one more, and perhaps many, unholy spots THE BO T IN BL US. 61 upon the face of this Republic. Winchester, Vir- ginia, and its borders, bear the sign-manual of retribu- tion. Poor mistaken enthusiast, John Brown ! A noble impulse working through a disturbed brain ! He swung in mid-heaven, a lifeless hideous mass of purple flesh, and the place that witnessed this historic tragedy, is as desolate as the shores of the Dead Sea. Thirteen times have the hordes of secession and the federal armies alternated in marching and counter-march- ing over the detested spot ! May the wrath of the Avenger be appeased with the rivers of blood, and the sinless lives that have already spread our land with desolation, and dotted its fairest valleys with unrecorded graves ! These things had not yet come to Chattanooga in the spring of '61, but the volcano of wrath was palpitating even in this sweet time, and the dull red smoke of erup- tive fire was settling over the faces of the proud hills, and upon the bold brows of Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge. It followed the borders of the river and stretched away to the northland, and mingled with a purer element and was lost at last in the holier spirit of loyalty. But to the south it grew deeper and darker, until humanity even, could not breathe its deadly atmo- sphere. There were a few Lots in this Sodom of the New World, but they would not flee at the warning. 6 62 THE BO T JN L UE. On the shore of the river stood the house of Robert St. Remy. It was as beautiful a spot as nature could well make. The water curled round a deep green point, and the grand trees stood up in the pride of old senti- nels that guarded the children from the fierce strokes of the summer sun. Scattered over the point were groups of sweet blossoms daring the gaze of mid day, and making the earth lovely with their presence. The house was large and low, with graceful verandahs shading the i. rench windows that made the rooms all look as if but retiring nooks from the sloping lawn. The entrance seemed always open, and hospitality had reigned with a free hand under its pleasant roof. There had been for many years only Mr. St. Remy, his only living son, and the pet and idol of the county, Remy, to occupy it. There were painful reasons for her strange name which were never explained to their friends, and no one could ask so delicate a question of any who carried St. Remy blood. There was that strange and incompre- hensible something about them that has no explanation, but it is a power in their presence which repels curiosi- ty, and wins respectful attention to all the amenities of refined life. The mother died abroad, and a delicate cenotaph reared its exquisite white beauty under a Lin- den tree down by the river, and the inscription, "THE BELOVED DEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD OF ST. REMY," began, and ended the history. THE BO r IN BL UE, 63 Robert St. Remy was worthy of a description hi those days. He was tall, and possessed that tfnusual accompaniment of altitude, grace of manner and ease of position, with handsome limbs and small extremities, and muscle that would have been the envy of a Titan. His forehead was high and broad and brown, jutting over deep eyes whose color was unknown to his acquaintan- ces, so dark and changeable were they, and so shadowed, yet no one ever looked upon his face without feeling their strange power, and even the lower grades of life bowed and swayed to his will, without a motion of re- sistance. His face was not handsome. There was not a line or curve of beauty upon it. His skin was an ex- treme olive, and there were tones and shadows upon it that only a brave artist would have dared reproduce. Beneath the eyes, deep purplish tawny colors suggested endless sorrow, but the lips which owned no symmetry at rest, curled into a contradiction of this hint of grief, and thrilled every feature into sunshine. His teeth bore the fifty years' service with a brilliancy that contrasted strongly and strangely with the hues about them. His hair was threaded with now and then a silver line, but it forgot to be 'old in its soft gleam and beautiful abun- dance. Its large black rings lay about his neck, and his beard'was silky and jetty, but closely cut in an English way, that the older servants said pleased the dead wife, and so he never changed its form. But his voice ! there lay the subtlest charm of all. It was full 64 THE BOY IN BL US. and deep, but changed with every emotion, and like the truest barometer, indicated tears, or sunshine, storm or calm. He carried a glorious nature, true as steel to the highest standard of manhood, and tender as a woman when humanity, affection or sympathy swayed his thoughts. He had sorrowed for himself and grieved for others. He had loved one woman devotedly, whether happily or not, always, and it filled his lifetime. He could adapt his heart to but only one love. His home was beautified to meet the demands of his own aesthetic nature, and when a perfect companionship filled it with delight, it would have been impossible to question the existence of a present heaven. This joy had been lured away from earth, and only the children kept him patient. He hid his loneliness from them, and they did sometimes quite beguile him of it. They made every day a measure of happiness to his home. Abernethy St. Remy was the eldest born, and a strange reticent man, delighting in chemicals and alembics, tel- escopes, and hieroglyphs, and, except his little sister and his father, no one ever entered the holy of holies in his affection. He looked like his father, only not so grand, and his profile was like that of a delicate woman. There was power in his steadfast gaze, but it was gone when he turned his face from you. You felt that mingling elements were charmingly blended, and that the fire of THE BOY IN BL UE. f,5 heaven, or its soothing and cooling dew might drop at a touch. He had pursued science because peace made her ways pleasant, but he began to feel the stirrings of strife conjuring a strange life in his soul, but the rumble of distant thunder, the threatening under- tones of revolution, the swift breath of the tempest of hatred transformed the delicately tempered stylet of steel to the weapon of Achilles. He boldly denounced the wrong, and grasped the sword of truth, justice and liberty, and like an avalanche precipitated his loyalty upon the restless opinions, and vague plans of the people. No man in all that valley dared face the hot breath of this crater of boiling elo- quence, and dissent. Followers came to his standard, staunch as the hills, and enemies, secret and vindictive, only waited for brute strength to crush the grandeur of this apostle of freedom. Berny St. Remy had been his familiar name among his friends, and it became the watchword of the true Unionists of East Tennessee. His soul, when roused, was prophetic. He saw the coming suffering the martyrdom for liberty but, thank God ! he did not foresee all. He could not have looked and lived, and yet he possessed marvelous en- durance. He never once quivered for himself before the blast, but his sister, the darling of the house, the idol of a broken home she must be spared ! She was * 06 THE BOY IN BL UE. abroad when the change came, for one year more of betters chool life than she could, in all respects, find at the South, and her father returned, leaving her in safety, while he was here to lull, if possible, the turbulence that had begun to rise in gusts, even beyond the ocean. But it was like lifting one's impotent finger to the wild north wind, this one voice among the crazed mul- titude. Berny was strong when alone, but it was terrible to look upon his beloved face in its agony of crushed hope and wasted peace, with only one life to give, and that belonging to the girl, motherless, and with strangers, and he fainted at heart sometimes before the possible suffer- ing of the future. Not once did he think of himself, or calculate his chances of life or death. Scarcely had coming events conspired to shape a course for either, when a message arrived announcing that Remy St. Remy had returned with a gentleman and his moth- er, (old friends of the family), from abroad. She could not stay from her people in their struggle. She could not face the intimations of fallen greatness that met her from exultant foreigners. She waited an escort to Chattanooga. This was a new subject to consider a new trouble to encounter. She was a St. Remy to the last drop of blood, and both father and brother gloried in her spirit, but decided that she must abide in the North. Her fiuher wrote her his desire, a comn.and never THE BO Y IN BL UE. 67 having passed his lips to her. Love had been a sweet law, and disobedience an unknown sin. She had given her hand to Carryl Farnam because her father wished it, which was a better reason to her, than because her woman's fancy was pleased. Her heart was a closed blossom whose petals had never felt the sun- shine of earnest affection, nor comprehended the inter- pretation of life, and so she had promised. Her brother had broken the old compact of friendship months ago, with Carryl Farnam, and detested him for the vile treason he plotted and promulgated, but love held a deep meaning to the father's understanding, and he dared not destroy his daughter's happiness, even if his own waning years were wrecked upon the new breakers that howled and seethed about them. He remembered her sweet childish face, and the deep tender eyes where a Tennessee sunshine always slept, and her round dimpled olive cheek, upon whose velvety curves never a tear of his own conjuring, lay. He re- membered the cenotaph on the lawn, and the lives and deaths it commemorated, and could not tell his child that worse than a grave separated him, and the man to whom he had given her. Perhaps he sometimes permitted a thought of possible change in her young heart also, but she was a woman, and so chivalric was he in his ideal of her constancy, that he did not keep a thought of swerving faith to comfort him in his agony . 68 THE BOY IN BL UE. That Carryl Farnam had gone to her, he did not know, though the rebel assumed to bear messages for her re- turn. That he came back rejected, humiliated and re- vengeful, was kept from the knowledge of the St. Remy family. It would have lightened their anxious hearts too much. The sweetest friendships had changed to the bitterest feuds, and the closest ties of blood bocome compacts of death. Bitterer here, than upon any of the western towns had fallen the strife that precedes the open battle. Berny had rallied a band of staunch supporters of the Union, and next him in command stood his father ! A strange reversal, but the fitness of the two for their res- pective positions reconciled the apparent want of honor to age. They did not then look forward to an open war, with the hills echoing to the wild cry of carnage, but to the small uprisings that often break upon a dis- turbed country, and this organized band had but just begun to feel its power and security, when Carryl Far- nam returned after a protracted absence. No one knew, but all supposed he had visited the head of the rebellion for some wicked purpose, and his presence brought dis- trust to the true, and secret exultation to the enemies of America. THE JiO 1' IN BL UK 69 CHAPTER V. HOKEY. " And thou, sad angel, who so long Hast waited for the glorious token, That earth from all her bonds of wrong, To liberty and light has broken. Angel of Freedom T Soon to thee The sounding trumpet shall be given, And over earth's full jubilee Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven." " Ho, wake and watch ! the world is gray with morning light !" THE dependents in the St. Remy mansion felt in a vague way that a great sorrow was before them, but it only excited their enthusiastic religious natures to an- ticipate the coming of the millenium that great day when they should all be w hite ! The signal for a change of color was listened for in the stillness of those soft spring midnights, and the Sabbath days were often wasted with toiling to the highest point of Lookout Mountain or Orchard Knob, to get a little nearer to the coming blast of the last day. They had a firm belief that all bad white people, and they were growing too numerous each day, were to be changed in the twinkling of an eye to the darkest complexion, and the wooliest 70 THE BO Y IN BL UE. heads. Retribution, and poetical justice, are favorite themes of those ignorant and innocent people. They had heard terrible legends, and horrible romances of colored suffering, but it had never come to them They were sometimes, like unruly children, governed and punished, but not with stripes. They took the com- mendation, and condemnation, of their superiors as so much justice, and never thought of resistance to the de- cision. Maumer Cleopatra had been the mother to them all, in the sense of being nurse to master's children, which made her oracle, and authority, in temporal and spiritual matters. Medical advice from her huge lips was fol- lowed with unquestioning faith. She dealt life and death, seldom the latter, from the medicine chest of Master St. Remy. She could not read the smallest word, and yet she never made a blunder with a bottle, or mistook the uses of the great bunches of odorous herbs that were all the better for the smoke and dust of the cabin pegs, where they hung like ifalismanic warnings to disease. Sundays, she grew to be saintly in a silk turban of scarlet and saffron, and a chintz gown of the gayest colors that Remy could find in her semi-annual visits to New Orleans. She mingled her conversation, as is usual with influential colored people, with copious quo- tations from the Scriptures, not quite applicable always, and sometimes not easy to locate, but always unanswer- THE BOY IN BL UE. 71 able. She had been the trusted servant when there was an \musual call for discretion. She had seen the happi- ness and sorrow of the Remy family, but, unlike her kind and color, she did not make their history the foundation of her colloquial entertainments. The younger members of the colored portion of the household, did not take to veneration early, or easily at any age, but when they were once subjugated by her will or wisdom, there was no revolt, even in thought. She trained them after Solomon's advice, and sometimes, though not often, she resorted to the power of the church and public prayer, in a grove upon Missionary Ridge. This last was always a sure remedy for present evils. Hokey was her especial trial. There was no white mistress, and the master was too sad and broken to be troubled with darkeys, so she said. She related her experience, or rather her biography after this wise to the clerical colored party, who prom- ised to bestow it upon his congregation with comments, and explanatory ejaculations, when he should have the grief of standing over her coffin. " Of this special trial," as she called Hokey, " there was many openins for the milk o' human kindness to run in, ain't none now. In the beginning, and firstly, he was a heap sight handsomer lookin than the older nigs. He didn't take to the catechise, a bit. 'Pears like he went agin it, afore he could talk. When I ask 72 THE BOY IN BL UE. him who made him, he said he spected de blacksmith did, with charcoal dust. He know'd better, dat niggar did. ' I said no,' very solm like, ' God made you ob de dust ob de ground.' He said jes as quick, ' 'spect he'd better made sumfin smarter nor a niggar. Dey isn't much 'count no how. Don't think he had much to do. One ting good 'bout 'em, dey don't fade, but de color runs, ky !' Says I, ' Hokey,' says I, ' you'r ten year old, and does'nt know your catechise. 'Pears like you'll die bimeby, and then where'll you go to?' Ef you believe it, dat are scamp said he'd be a white boy den, after he'd gone up, and buy a million books with picturs, and lock de doors and keep every ole body from making him put em down. ' Hokey,' says I, awful solm agin, ' servants be obedient to your masters, not eye-servants, havin somebody follerin ye with a cat-tail, for he dat went in at de lebenth hour had jes as much pay, as he dat worked when de sun was hot,' and he jes ris right up, and, you wouldn't believe how sassy and handsome he looked, when he said, " Guess I'll wait a spell, den 'cause, maumer, I spect yous'e a mighty nice old nig- ger woman, but you'se proper like a cropple crowned, hen, what's taken to crowin. I don't like yer cackle. When de Lord made Adam mebby he painted him black. I asked Masser Remy, and he said, mebby. I don't want any of your catechise. When I'me a big feller I'm goin to be mancipated, masser says I am, and ky ! won't I ? No matter what I'll do, ole cropple THE SO T IN BL HE. 73 crown. Mebby I'll marry Dot, and mancipate her, ky ! little female nig !" And he whopped him's pesky black self heels ober head and stuck his toes inter Dot's mouf which was allus open when I talked scriptur. Ky ! didn't her snap her white grinders onto his toe nails 'till he squealed like a hyena. De berry next ting dem darkies did was to steal raisins, and eat em out of each Oder's moufs as lovin as two pigs, and he'd call her his gal. Tell ye what, that are boy has been my trial, but he's grow'd to be a mighty likely fellsr, only he ain't a bit religous, not a bit, and I'm awful 'fraid he'll go for to marry my Dot and take her to perdition wid him, only I don't b'leive he'll quite go hisself, he's so good to my ole bones. Massa did mancipate him, and he don't stay off long. He says he'll come to my funeral, and I know yer'll have a handsome coffin for me. 'Pears like I'm willin to go, but I should like to be sartin first of a proper nice funeral. Dare ain't many young ones to cry, and Dot, she's away, and 'pears like I'se goin to glory 'fore she comes back. I heard de tick ob de death watch at de head ob my bed, and I dreamt ob a white horse and me on him, and Hokey scarin him like possess't, and I flyin like mad. I'm off mighty soon, I reckon." She never knew when the proper resting time for her tongue occurred, nor where the periods came in her con- versation, but silence fell upon her at last, just before 7 74 THE BOY IN BL UK the great iron heel strode over the land, treading in the wine-press of agony and death, servant and master, out of which at last the fountain of liberty shall cast up its pure waters, and baptize every suffering soul. There was a prolonged contest in Hokey's mind ! tween liberty and love. His affection for his master was as tender as a great white heart could make it, but his longing for universal freedom was stronger than his hold upon life. He must serve his people and his master too, but how? Poor old Cleopatra had failed to indoctrinate him with her creed, but now that there was no strength in man, he lifted his helpless hands to the God of Liberty, and offered himself a sacrifice of serving, or suffering with the abnegation of a Roman patriot. Vip was the gardener. He had been sly and trouble- some, and Viper was the original name given him. Cle- opatra's stripes and prayers had not changed his pur- poses or habits, but taught him to follow still more closely the nature that came with him. He carried more duplicity Under his black skin than could be crowded into twenty white men, but he was intensely superstitious, and only through this element in his nature could he be controlled. Hokey detested and feared him, and Vip returned ih. hatred but not the fear. He did not forgive Holu-y !lr THE BO Y IN BL UE. 75 being free. He considered himself fully as deserving, and far more capable of managing himself, but the master, perhaps, understood his nature too well to trust him. It had been a principle in the St. Remy household never to purchase a fellow-being except for humanity's sake. When there was more than the needful supply they gave liberty to the worthiest. In the annals of the house it was recorded that Hokey's mother had been bought to make the father of this favored servant happy. Cleopatra's husband too had been procured at an enormous sum to content her loving soul, and give her an object upon which to lavish her affection, religious experience, and temper. She had become too wretched to be successful in pastry or poultry, after a few inter- views with him on one eventful Christmas time, and her master purchased the handsome lazy fellow, and secured success in the cuisine. When the woman was promoted to the position of nurse, her piety, propriety, and pride, rose to such a height that she was heard to say that her husband was " a shiftless nigger, but mighty good lookin on Sundays and could pray dretful fine." He went to sleep before she did, and she had a " nice funeral, proper nice," and wore a black print dress, and wept in a handkerchief bordered with " unconsolable grief," and a lemon and green bandanna was wound 76 THE BOY IN BLUE. about her head. Scarlet was excluded in her first sor- row, but it was restored with apparent cheerfulness in just four weeks and five days. She never married again, for her master was unwilling to meet the outlay of first expenditures, and so ht-r scoldings were distributed thereafter. Viper and Doro- thea, or Vip and Dot, were her only descendants, and as unlike as two colored people could well be. They dis- liked each other with an intensity that was fearful. It took the form of digital and incisor warfare in childhood, but afterwards in sullen separation as far as practicable. Cleopatra's ebony cheeks wore many a salt jewel because of their implacable hatred. It was well that Dot was with her mistress now, or the lawless spirit that pervaded black and white, might have led to a tragedy of the St. Domingo order. The remaining slaves were peaceable, careless creatures, who had no sorrow that could not be cured by a kind word or gay gift, except when a real grief came, and then they found consolation in religion. Faith was almost fruition in their believing souls. The political cauldron of Chattanooga was seething, and who could tell what would be evoked even from the hearts of those simple folk, who were, with now and then an exception, happy and content with the fate that was upon them. Freedom was a pleasant word, and sounded grand, and is grand, but to them, for the most part, it veiled THE BO Y IN BL HE. 77 care and personal responsibility, and they coveted neither. This domestic picture had many counter-parts in Southern homes, but there were too sad contrasts, be- cause liberty belongs to every human soul, but it cannot be reached without pain. All progress, and all growth, comes by agony. The second birth to the dark children will be through fire and blood, but it will be to an in- heritance of manhood and womanhood at last. Evil has a vivid existence in th ; s era. The wrong is to the right, as shadow to a beautiful picture. It is need- ful. It does not make gold of less worth because meaner metals are abundant. A higher Hand cares for these things, and time is a thorough alchymist. The stream of God's providence flows on, and springs of kindness are never exhausted, neither are the hands that mete justice ever weary. Be patient and strive in the humble ways, for there are Toussaint L'Ouvertures innumerable, among your people, who" are worthy the martyr's crown, or, better still, the laurel of liberty. The good God's day has not yet come for your per- fect emancipation, but the blush of its dawn is upon you. Be patient ! 7* 78 TEE BOY IN BLUE. CHAPTER VI. JUNE 8, 1861. " Come out of her, my people, lest ye be partakers of her sins." *' And yet we must Beware, and mark the natural kiths and kins Of circumstance and office, and distrust The rich man's reasoning in a poor man's hut." THE twilight of a thousand years gone by settled down, upon Tennessee, the deluded, the wronged. Write this date in black letter upon the page of history. Nelson, the patriot, called upon the vibrating people to make this day glorious for future years, but they could not. Rebel troops cast rebel votes, and rebel majorities sealed the fate of struggling loyalists but not forever. He implored them to arrest despotism, but they were impotent. As an alternative, the only one, he said : THE BOY IN BLUE, 79 " Cry, friend of freedom ! ' Every man to his tents, O, Israel !' " 4 Snatch from the ashes of your sires, The embers of their former fires, And he who in the strife expires, Will add to theirs a name 01 fear, That tyranny will quake to hear.' " East Tennessee could not endure the result of this election to loyalty or treason with complacency, and so Berny St. Remy became an orator. The pale quiet student flung the long suppressed fire of his nature to the people, 'till brand after brand of burning truth was seized an-1 held up glowing with quenchless brightness to the darkness that was gathering with appalling terror about them. They begged permission to be a State by themselves, these mountaineers, where loyalty and liberty could live on the hills and in the valleys of that wild east land, but their pleading was too late too late ! Violence was forcing them to a vortex of ruin, and nothing but the strength of the rejected government could rescue them. The heroes of these mountain homes were betrayed, hunted like the Huguenots, imprisoned, murdered, or worse, exiled ! Many crossed the mountains to escape from the rebel soldiery, and enlist under the dear old flag, which they hoped would sometime go back triumphant, to float on the highest peak of their boldest bluff. There were heroes who must remain, and the unfettered echoes of 80 TEL- BO Y IN BL UK these grand mountains incited them to chant the sweet notes of liberty, keyed from their forefathers' diapase of freedom. Women and children were hunted by secession soldiery, and innocent martyrs to their coun- try, they were translated by the angels to the highest heavens, to plead there for their crushed and bleeding households. Brave Alleghaneans ! Your history will glow by the Switzers' story, and your Johnsons, Nelsons and May- nards, be sung with the songs of Tell, Furst, Melchthal and Stauffaeher. Mountaineers of every land and time have been liber- ty loving. They are not tamed with an easy hand, and the light leash which holds the citizens of a plain, they part at the first wrench of their will, and assert the bold- est independence. Andrew Johnson was a new ruler of the popular opin- ions. His elements were of a later day, and a stronger stuff. He had grown from the lower strata of society to a power of the highest rank. He had taken root deep in the heart of the original earth, and nothing could sway him from his position. " He is only a mudsill," his enemies said, but they trembled when his name was uttered. Southern habits and social regulations are not promo- ters of industrial progress or intellectual culture in even the higher ranks, and less so in the lower classes, but Johnson had been one of those wonderful exceptions THE BO T IN L UE. 81 which at long intervals shoot across the years, like a meteor athwart the sky, and we wonder and admire, but cannot entirely comprehend. He learned his alphabet after marriage, because poverty denied him the luxury of books, and in his earlier struggles for life, there was no hour to spare for the growth of intellect. But his time came. He crossed the mountains of Tennessee and rose to the rank of Senator by virtue of energy, and his loyalty to Freedom. Hardy, and true to whatever purpose his iron will had determined upon, he did not droop under the calami- ty of the brief severance of his state from the mother government, but labored, and waited, till deliverance came. The days seemed years, and the months centu- ries, but they waned at last, and the cloud was lifted, but not entirely swept away. To grow from the depths of lower humanity, and reach moral perfection in this life, is impossible, and whatever failures belong to the history of Andrew Johnson, we must remember, the good he has accom- plished, and how through the darkness of ignorance he has lifted himself to a higher plane than one could have believed. If he sometimes vibrates, and the backward swaying is too far, pity and forgive him, for the sake of June 8, 1861. He proved his honest patriotism in the Senate of the Federal States, in his memorable speech upon the 92 THE BO Y IN BL UE. secession of Tennessee, and the election of its first Rebel Governor. He said in an outburst of natural elo- quence : " Isham G. Harris to be my master, and the master of the people I have the proud, and conscious honor of re- presenting on this floor ! Mr. President, he should not be my slave!" Through this struggle, Berny St. Remy could not be inactive. It was useless to remain, and his father gave him to a cause he did not yet see how he could best serve. It was not unmanly to weep when the hour of separation came, and there was no woman's tears to hallow the parting, but woman's tenderness and man's bravery lay in the souls of both. A secret gathering and a seeming separation of his band, and then they were gone, and the rebels raved in vain because they could not be captured. Revenge upon those who were courageous enough to remain, was all that there was left for baffled enemies, and they en- joyed its sweetness to the last drop of the fiendish draught. Colonel St. Remy reached Paducah on the very day of its occupation by Union forces, and offered himself and such of his men as should reach the Federal lines, to General Grant's service, and was gladly accepted. There was that in the face, and in the grasp of the Ten- nesseean's hand that met a response from the leader of the Western armies. Berny St. Remy had waited THE BO T IN SL UE. 33 and hoped for his people, but fate had doomed Chatta- nooga. Its destiny was already sealed. His father remained to keep alive the dim hope of some who were true, but faint with waiting. Tired souls there were, who felt the humiliating blow of de- feat so keenly that the wound would not readily heal. Hokey was a secessionest externally, because he could render better service to his old master by learning the purposes of the rebels, and at heart he was too humane not to rejoice at an event that delivered his people from bondage. He had learned from the developments of the summer that it was the cruel masters the hard men who spared no bond of blood or affection when their interest demanded its sundering, that were eager for the dismemberment of the nation. More than all the years of his life, had the last few months developed his latent perceptions and his heroic energies. Vip was suspicious of him, and watched him with an intuitive comprehension of the truth. He too rejoiced in secession, because he believed that in the overturning of power, he should somehow find himself a-top, but he did not foresee that all but death lay across the path that led to it. He had no care for his race only for himself Viper. Sometimes, in his reflective moods, Vip soliloquised of himself thus : " De Lor knows what he made me for. 1 don't. I'se agin everybody and everybody's agin me. I'se sure ob 84 THE BOY IN BL UE. one ting, I ain't sponsible, cause I didn't hab nothing to do bout making myself. Guess if dis nigger had, dare would have been more wheat flour and less char- coal used. Bress me, what for did de Lor put my har in such a kink fur? Spect he frizzled it ober de brim- stone afore he let me come, and I'll get ofF wid only a single scorch when I goes to de bad place. O, I hate de white goats. Fse a sheep, and belong to de right- han ob de Lor's Throne." He was well named, but the time had come when no man dared utter his full appellation in his presence. He did not mind the sound of Vip, that was well enough, for it meant just nothing but himself, but the other, it interpreted too much of himself, and he felt it like a blow. The rebels watched the movements of the colored people with even more jealousy and suspicion than they did the open opponents of the new doctrine. They feared and coveted them at the same time. Too many, had already escaped to the " Dixie of Darkies," Canada and, since the uprising of the North, thousands had found their way where no home waited and no welcome met them, because they were wanderers. They were called the bone of contention, but no one cared to re- tain the object when it fell into their possession. Mr. St. Remy's tall figure had drooped somewhat in the summer's waning. There was no one to comfort him in his loneliness, and sometimes his own thoughts THE BO T IN BL UE. 85 were almost too horrible for endurance. He sat hours and hours by the cenotaph, wondering where his chil- drens' heads were pillowed, and while he reasoned that Remy was safe, he knew she was wretched, and love has so many sad imaginings and so many fancied pos- sibilities. Early autumn came, and the lazy day had sunk into a golden glory. The purple busts of the mountains had changed from dun to dusk, and then to dark. The nar- row white shore looked like a torpid serpent stretching itself on the border of the slow current of the river. The distance held silence, and across the stream the marsh grass was burning in a lurid blaze, and arching great cones of smoke which rose to the very zenith. The reeds vibrated slowly to the motion of the faint air. The new moon touched its curved side on Orchard Knob, and lifted its crescent horns to heaven like two imploring arms. This night found Mr. St. Remy in his lonely seat, listening for some utterance of hope and praying for a human voice to speak sympathy, if it could not syllable a promise of coming help. He felt Fate's hand closing and crushing him in its grasp, and his heart stood still with despair. The night deepened hour by hour, and the fire died out over the river. A sound trembled by his side, but did not startle, it only thrilled him as if a pleiad had come down and touched his hand. The starlight seemed drunken with 8 86 THE BO Y IN BL UK joy and reeled through the restless ripples of the river. A clear confident voice broke through the stillness, and said: " I am Aurora Farnam. We do not meet anymore, and I could not come in the sunshine, but I trust I bring a ray when I tell you that the St. Remy heart is not truer to the old Republic than mine. I do not fear the daylight, but it would endanger you. To-morrow there will be manacles for you in my father's house. I am glad there is no light, or you would see me crimson to tell you this. You must go with me to-night. I have seen this fate coming to you, and am prepared." For a moment he uttered no sound. No fear of per- sonal suffering had part in that strong man's tremor, but a thought, first of his country, then of his child, and last, of this brave young girl who risked so much for him, shook every fibre of his being like the throes of an earthquake. " I cannot go with you, my child ; a man's defence is his own arm. My life may be taken, but it shall be purchased dearly. I cannot forget my self-respect even in this. My daughter must never blush for her father." " If you could meet your enemies in open warfare, in honorable contest, would Aurora Farnam counsel her old friend to flight? This is a mob, a band of guer- rillas. Would you waste your life for the opinion of such a horde 1 Remember Remy remember Berny THE BO T IN BL UE. 87 and remember me ! I am almost alone in the world. There is no gulf so wide or deep, no distance so im- measurable as that which separates me from my kin- dred, except my poor, patient, helpless mother. But I am strong to do, and shall suffer, if the time for open rebellion comes, in our household. I am not here to- night to go back without you, and I shall remain if you are deaf to my supplication. Hokey waits for me under the tulip tree, down by the river. We came in my own boat." A shudder, though not of fear, crept again slowly over him. Aurora felt it under the hand she rested upon his shoulder. She knew the reason of this strong patriot would assert itself, and decide him to spare his steady arm for a better purpose than mere personal defence. It would be needed by and by. Both were sure of this too sure. " Don't waste time, my friend, for it is almost mid- night and the young moon has gone down. We can gather whatever you carry from your home quickly. It must be little, or we shall be suspected. Vip is never fully asleep now. I fear that vile negro, and so does Hokey. He would sacrifice you to-night. He was born inhuman, so don't grieve for the love of a servant whose affection you never had. Hokey is as noble as Vip is detestable. By and by, it will not be murder to kill Vip in some safe place." It almost stupefied her listener to hear this girl this 88 THE BOY IN BLUE. child, as he thought her, planning for him, a man ! He could not comprehend the rapidity of growth which Aurora's latent energies had reached. A few months of terror which passed in listening to plots against human life, and those lives as dear to her as her o\vn, had fostered a marvelous capability of meeting the exi- gencies of the vilest schemes. She was intrepid, and life had long ceased to be a pleasure to herself, but she held it precious for its uses to others and to her country. Her very fearlessness gave her a peculiar aptitude and fitness for meeting danger, and a cool calculation of chances for others. If the daylight had shown him her face, he would have turned from it in unendurable pain. Eyes so dry, weary, and patient in suffering, had never met his own. She had been a dashing brilliant creature, upon whom youth sat superbly, and gave prophecy of magnificent, womanhood. She was plain featured, almost to a posi- tive ugliness, when silence lay over her face. Her color was so faint, and the contrasts so indistinct ! There were no degrees of tint. The palest pigments and no others entered into her creation. She was tall, lithe and willowy, and her pliant figure and graceful outlines were never in an attitude that did not force the beholder to wish she might become changeless. Under this characterless toning, there lay a fire which sprang to the response of a thought or word, and covered her features with a veil of light so radiant that you doubted if she THE BO Y IN BL HE. 89 could be again the same statuesque impersonation of calm. Impassioned, and impassive alternately, the light and shadow of the immortal flitting over her face, gave her a marvelous charm, and an almost supernatural power. She was patiently waiting for Mr. St. Remy's thoughts to become accustomed to this last pitiful outrage, for patience Had become so habitual to her, since the strife began, that had he waited in silence till dawn, she would not have broken it, unless, as now, his safety demanded haste. Scarcely could the outlines of any one be discerned, but her quick sight distinguished the poor man's figure leaning toward the marble remembrance of his dead, and his brown cheek lying upon its cold surface, as if to gather endurance, and then his bent spirit asserted itself, and his voice had the old manly tones, as he begged her to wait, if she had no fear, and he would return pres- ently. But a half hour passed, when he came back with the courtliness of the elder days, and offered his arm to Miss Farnam and they walked in silence to where the boat lay, lazily rocking in the eddies that curled about the cove by the tulip tree. Neither spoke as the slow dip of oars, deep and strong, shot the little shallop rapidly past the town, and round the bluff, and then it stood out in the stream and rowed in silence till op- posite a glimmer upon the bold shore which sent a faint 8* 90 THE BO Y IN BL UE. line over the waves, and then died into the dark. Ho- key headed his boat inland, and pulled softly to the shore. He touched the ledge, sprang out and carefully assisted these two, his hunted master and Aurora Far- nam, up the difficult ascent to an entrance in the cliff. Turning a short sharp angle, they stooped, and entered a passage ending a few feet beyond in another turn, which opened to a dimly lighted room. There were the comfortable furnishings of a wild life, and nothing more, except a few volumes of rare books. Aurora's face lighted with the certainty of present safety and assumed her droll old way of making others forget themselves. " Mr. St. Remy, the Brigand of Chattanooga, and Mr. St. Remy's adopted daughter. No resemblance required. He preys upon himself, and she intends to do the same. Ten thousand dollars offered for his cap- ture, and the young lady succeeds, but don't realize the bounty. She feeds him just as the ravens fed Elijah. Hope he will have his food as frequently as that his- toric gentleman did ; but can't give an assurance. He has a barrel of hard bread, a few bottles of old wine, and something to hope for. He shall have the news when there is any, and liberation when he will promise to drop two rebels at every expended cartridge." The strange girl chirruped on, till she brought a smile to the sad face, and then the gleam upon her own went out as if it had forgotten to stay. Hokey was to take her home before the dawn, and a THE BO Y IN BL UE. 91 poor half idiot of her father's house would come to the cave, when no other could reach it unsuspected. This poor negro had been spared from the slave gang, because she plead for him, and he had lived as he could, doing little and knowing less, in fact nothing reached his intellect except through his abject love for his young mistress. That terrible morning when he clung to his poor mother, years ago, and she with the tears she would have shed over a dying infant, pleading to keep him because of his helplessness, was fresh in a memory that held but one thing more, and that was Aurora's white hand upon his head the night he lay upon that mother's freshly covered grave. The sound of her voice in that long ago purple twi- light was his idea of melody. When the birds sang he thought of it, and when the waters rippled and gurgled over the pebbles down the mountains to the river, he always said softly to himself, " Aurora singing to the stars. Poor Joe can hear her. He aint clar deaf." She could trust Joe with any service ; for devotion made him understand, and follow her minutest instruc- tions. She had explained to the poor lad that this was an important mission which he was occasionally to per- form. Under his blue cotton blouse she hung a cross carved and polished from yellow cairngorm crystal and held by a scarlet knot. It was a gift to her from Remy St. Remy, and held 92 THE BO Y IN BL US. a meaning, for the loyal girl, of unbroken compacts and unswerving devotion. Joe understood it as her mark upon him, and that hereafter he was to be only her's to command, and disobedience to any other order than Aurora's would be understood by her as proof of his affection. His fellow servants also bore a mark of ownership, upon their shoulders in ugly scars from a hot brand of steel, but his flesh was spared because he was valueless to his master Joe was proud of his mark the shining cross and it was a sore trial, because he was to show it to no one except Mr. St. lieiny. He comprehended. that in serving the hidden man, he was pleasing his mtetress, and this was enough to secure perfect attention. All this was explained to the prisoner, and then with a pitiful and half comical farewell, Aurora left the man alone, with fate frowning her grimmest, and hope bat- tling obstinately in his bosom for life, just a breath of life, and it conquered ! The day dawned, but his one taper burned on, for no light of this first morning of captivity came in from heaven. He did not care even to lift the stone away that kept the entrance closed, till the sun had touched the meridian, and began its descent down beyond the crest of Look-out Mountain. He had lain in that dull stupor of wordless agony that few can feel and live, but the remembrance of his children roused him at last, and going forth into the passage he found Joe sitting TEE BOY IN BL HE. 93 silently upon the stone floor, with a hamper, keeping guard, and patience at the same time. Even this brief captivity was sufficient, to teach him how sweet was human presence, and a quick thrill of pleasure ran through veins, which had grown sluggish in the last few painful hours. " Does'nt yer wish yer was a nigger and yer name was Joe ?" was the whispered salutation, as the negro parted his blue covering, and showed the cross in his bosom. " Missy Aurora tied it on my neck, and she's nobody's mistis now but Joe's, and he's a fool. I know'd whar you'se hid; she bring'd me here, afore Masser Carryl got home. He's a mighty cruel man, Missy says I'se to tell dis with her love and, says she'll come and pay her spects afore the moon gits too big to mind her bizness. That's all I'se to say, only here's yer dinner." Joe laid out the cold food, daintily prepared by Au- rora's white hands, upon a shelf in the rock, and turned to go. There were so many questions to ask of a world that seemed to have drifted away somehow in that night, that first long night of prison life ! "Joe did the " ; ' Dat's all I's to say," Joe whispered. " You need not speak so low inside this room, Joe. How long have you waited outside ?" " Dat's all I'se to say," and he gathered up whatever he was directed to return. 94 THE BO T IN BL UE. It made Mr. St. Remy's anxiety doubly hard to en- dure because he could not comprehended the reticence of the daft creature, and his imagination filled the words with a world of terrible interpretation. " Pray tell me, Joe, if there has been any outbreak to-day ?" but Joe had fulfilled his duties as he compre- hended them, and before the sentence was complete from Mr. St. Remy's lips, the strong sibilant sounds of Joe's sentence came back, reverberating like the hissing rush of angry prophecies from unearthly voices. Silence and solitude are rapid promoters of supersti- tious fancy, but here were terrific realities, which held all imaginings in contempt. If a quiver ran through his heart at the weird sound, it was because the fear was upon him that he should wait in vain for another visit, and tidings of the day's doom to his fellow Union- ists. Mr. St. Remy had furnished himself with the requi- sites of self-protection, and held in the charges of his arms a score of deaths, and he began to long for action. A hunted man soon forgets pity and tenderness to his pursuers. He was sorry he had not taken his chances in an over-mountain escape to the Union army, and died in the ranks, rather than hide from enemies he longed to face. But he was kept for other and perhaps better uses even, than he could have rendered fighting the foe at long range, or in a closer clash of bayonets. Providence had destined him for special service, THE BOY IN BL UE. 95 though its value might seem small. It would satisfy his ardor when the hour for action came. There was a fiendish pleasure snatched from Carryl Farnam when he entered the house at " Cairngorm," Mr. St. Remy's plantation, and missed clasping seces- sion manacles upon the patriot's feet. The hatred that he had gathered on the slope by the sea, miles and miles away, was to be expended to-day, but the means had slipped from him. The servants were in terror because of their lost master. They feared the fate that had befallen their fellows further away, for the story of their sufferings which had gathered intensity in its wanderings, was marvelous for cruelty, when it reached them. To be masterless, meant present riot and future starvation, as they understood it. Some maintained that he had " done gone and drown'd hissef, he's so lonesome for Remy," but then there were missing articles that no servant would have purloined. The dead mistress' picture that hung over master's bed, a bit of ivory in a golden circle, sparkling with diamonds, but guarded from ignorant covetousness by the speaking eyes of the buried woman. The Minnie rifle and a box of re- volvers that were bronght from over the ocean, a gar- ment or two, and an infant's shoe that had hung for years upon his dressing mirror, and which nobody dared to touch, were gone. These informed St. Remy's enemy that his visit was vain. For a moment, Farnam 96 THE BOY iy BL UE. thought to burn Cairngorm, and enjoy his vengeance watching the flames, but another form of cruelty was hinted to his wicked heart. Sometime Remy St. Remy should enter that house, the purchaser of her father's or brother's life, and he would be its master, and hers. It should wear its old look of loveliness, and the servants should be the same to torture her with remembrance. But if he should fail ! he would arrange for that. Every rebel seemed in those days, and even now, to believe that whatever falls in their way, is theirs. This was the first principle that was evolved by secession. He joined his fellows a few rods away. They had been considerate enough to permit him the pleasure of this visit unshared, and he carried the tidings of defeat to them, but promised to " secure the game by and by," and, as the daughter's betrothed, would assume the care of the premises. A few miles distant, there was another Union house- hold, or rather there was a widow whose sons had di- vided the house, but she was true. One followed the seceded states and its fortunes, and the other had writ- ten to say, that he should join the Federal troops im mediately, upon his return to this country, and only prayed that he might never meet in mortal combat, his elder brother, who had been his pride, and example, till this division of principle and fate. The mother was one of those stately southern matrons, who comprehend THE BO Y IN BL HE. 97 nothing that is unworthy, and hold honor above wealth love, or life itself. When her eldest born brought the sword of a rebel for her to gird upon him, she turned away, saying with a voice into whose tones happiness would never again enter : Hobart Ringold, I could stand by your rounded grave with more hope, and consolation, than I have looked upon you to-day. Your brother enters the ranks, a patriot, a soldier, and a Christian. If he dies, I am henceforth a childless widow. Perhaps your hand will make the picture reality. You are your father's child, not mine by any likeness of life or purpose, but God knows I loved you best, once, though not now. May the curse of every heart broken by this" war fall upon your head. I have implored you to spare yourself this, but you have craved your doom. Do not touch me Do not look upon the wreck you have made. I shall clothe myself with black, and drape my house in mourn- ing, till I die Go !" And her white hand stretched toward the door through which his handsome face had brought the sunshine of her earlier widowhood, and carried now the happiness of a fading life. There was one other in her house, who held the old government in reverence, and that was her silver haired father. Age had come to him like the falling of the dew, in Autumn. His joys and sorrows belonged to others now, and were absorbed into his soul by a loving sympathy with 9 98 THE SO Y IN BL UE. all humanity. He waited patiently and willingly for a summons to a higher existence for the sake of his wid- owed daughter. His old swift blood again rushed through his veins, and his chivalric soul was flooded with loyal heroism, when the bugle blast of contest reached his ears. He seemed to take on a new life, and battled with his strong arguments for the right. He was a host in his daring, when the might of his eloquence was upon him. Carry 1 Farnam spent his hoarded hate upon this snowy head, already bared for a crown of martyr- dom. Mrs. Ringold met this ne-v torture with a stunned silence. It had come the very evening she lost her eldest child, her deluded boy! Her father gloritxl because he could suffer for his country, when age h.-id eaten away the sinew with which he would once have fought. " Be brave, my child," he said, " liberty is a goddess worthy the worship. I only wish I were a thousand strong men, and not weak, and old, and helpless. But Carryl Farnam's heroism is only equal to such enemies as I. He is a secession officer. God keep, and love you my poor child, but I 1 am, happy, exultant ! It stirs my sluggish life. Fix your bayonet, brafj^art, I will go only as they did in Piedmont, to your prison." His figure reared itself to its old proud height, and he looked like a captured king. Shame rendered Carryl Farnam viler than before, and THE BO T IN L HE. 99 he grasped the old man's garments, and wrenched him from the arms of his widowed child, and with one firm thrust sent him forth, only to fall across the entrance of his house, and he was dead ! The patriot stepped from his own threshold to heaven, to carry the wrongs of his people, and plead the cause of freedom. God heard him ! Carryl Farnam found his country's enemies that night, and entered the service of the southern autocrat. 100 THE BOY IN BL VE. CHAPTER VII. MELTED IN THE FIRE. "But I am dead, you sec, And that explains it." "What can you do with people when they are dead? But if you are pious, sing a hymn and go, Or if you are tender, heave a sigh and go, But go by all means, and permit the grass To keep its green feud up 'twixt them and you ; Then leave me let me rest." AURORA FARNAM stood in the deep embrasure of one of her father's windows, on the morning of the day that her brother left them. She wondered that the dawn dare drop upon so bad a world. She looked up to the sky and its light smote her like a blow. She looked backwards to her rich life, so full of happiness, and saw how all the blessing that a childhood and girlhood can understand, were confluent at her birth, and flowed like a deep bright river, and then diverged with the last year's waning, and wandered on till heaven exhaled every drop, and left her a barren existence. Her thoughts voyaged over the possible years, but found no THE EOT IN BLUE. 101 place of rest or peace. Poor, poor Aurora ! A blank, blind, weary way, and oh, so hard to walk alone ! " Aurora." Not a word was answered. " Aurora, I am going now. My mother cursed me. What have you for me to make my thoughts easier to endure ?" He waited, but she did not turn or move. " Shall all our lives and their promises be blotted out by a perverse fancy of something which a woman can neither judge or comprehend ? I am pleading for the last time, Aurora." Slowly she turned, and faced Hobart Ringold. " Thank God for this last assurance. I hoped your voice would never smite my ear again. If I were not worn out with the weary anguish of looking into the dark of a wrecked life, I suppose I should repeat the curse your mother gave you, but I will not ; for I am too weary. I am ground, and tortured, and bruised with the wrongs I see growing about me, but you have no more power to pain me ; you only tire with your heartless talk. If you choose to attempt to strike the heavens and beat your own life out against the stars, it is nothing to me. The heavens will not fall by the smiting, though they may look cloudy and black. The sun will still shine above the darkness. This dumb aching will find a balm by-and-by, when the coming strife shall need my service. There are few women, 9* 102 THE BO Y IN BL UE. too few I fear, to care for the fallen. Perhaps I'll rest your head when a swift ball fixes your time to die. You see how calmly I look to this end which is not far away. Till then, let there be utter silence betwixt us two." Slowly her eyelids crept down over her dull eyes, and she turned back again to the soft air of Autumn, as if she had held her breath, lest she should gather the same atmosphere that fed the life of the man she worshipped once, but loathed to-day. " Aurora, my Morning, will you send me from you so ?" and there were tears in his voice, but she answered nothing. " Aurora, there will be no other dawn upon my life." She turned again like an upward flash of fire that had smouldered under the crust of Stromboli. " Amen ! As you have turned from the God who cre- ated you, from the country that protected you, and the mother who bore and loved you, so may the sunshine of the eye and soul be blotted out, as I am blotted out from you forever." Again she faced the sky, and slowly the man who once held her happiness in his palm, and tossed it into the popular vortex of enthusiastic error, turned away, never to look into her glowing face again. Her father came next for an explanation of this short interview, but she lay upon a crimson pillow, so pale THE BOY IN BLUE. 103 and worn, with that eating agony always growing into her cheeks, and grooving channels for the tears that would not come, that his heart relented, and he stooped and kissed her lips, and went away resolving that though his heart went with his son, and Hobart Ringold, his words should not wound his daughter. " They're not made like us they can't help it, poor things ! I'll stay by, and Carryl shall not wring her heart with his hard words. I wish it was all over though, but she wont be here if the time don't come soon. The only way to fix it, is to take sharp measures. Nobody's daughters are like mine in this God-forsaken place. One extreme or the other, fire-eaters every one of them. Her mother was like Aurora, before she took to her bed, so alike so alike !" A little drop of human blood that was not yet dry, curdled in his veins ; and as he felt the cold flutter, he said again to himself : " Somebody's walking over where my grave is to be, I wonder who, and where ?" He seated himself in the embrasure, where Aurora stood to dismiss Hobart Ringold, and the heavy crim- son curtains quite concealed his person from observa- tion. Presently she stirred, and moaned, and a patient smile lay over her face, as if moaning eased her agony. He father looked about the room. Everything bore the delicate touch of his daughter's hand. ITore a 1 04 THE BOY IN BL UE. blossom drooping over the throat of a crystal goblet, there a filmy netting across the bared bosom of Psyche and a touch of delicate tracery, blossom-like, wrought with her happy fingers in the better time upon the satin cushions of his cosy chair. Everything seemed frescoed over with the glamour of her busy hands, and as he looked, he too moaned, and a strong deep pity, and something of the old natural love visited his heart, and he said softly, " Poor child, the rough winds of these stormy times have blown the light out of your sweet eyes that used to flash and melt with every change of a bird's song. Poor, poor Aurora, your name doesn't be- fit you any more, but may-be there is a better life for us all in the next year. Whatever is, I must follow my State, whether to peace or ruin, for I have said it. I wish the words had never touched the air." Aurora heard the last utterance, and the dreary un- dertone that keyed such a w r ail of woe which she was sure he would hear without one backward look. It was not like a Farman to return, even if they had taken the wrong way. She lifted her eyelids just enough to take in the picture of his face and see how worn it was, and mark the bleaching of his thick brown hair, so like her own, only deeper in color ! Now she knew that among all her secret enemies, she had one staunch secret friend. There rose a ripple of the old color to her face, and she felt the flame deepening which she feared was quenched forever. Hope is so re-active so hard to die! She THE BO Y IN BL UE. \ Q5 knew the Farman blood too well to stir it by a word, hoping for a deeper throb of feeling than welled responsive to its own thought. Carryl entered now, the last and hardest to thrust out from her prayers. How could she let him be the vile possessor of the same blood she bore about in her great throbbing heart ? She knew he was to commit his first outward act of cruelty this day, and she dared not think when the blood would be staunched. The concentrated hate that is born of wrong, of suffering and deception, flooded her white lips and crept up to her pale rippled hair as she rose, and faced him with every muscle full, and not a curve or line of her eloquent face unbent. The old lire, only a thousand gleams brighter and fiercer than ever lit it before, shown out of her eyes, so dull and dry, and weary but an hour gone. "A boiling village runs over with babble sometimes, and I suppose by the young devil looking out-of your eyes, that you have caught the froth to-day, eh ?" Not a word came. " You can be more insolent with your face, than any man ever was with a wicked tongue. You are a mag- nificent young lioness, and I know a mate to you- You'll both be tamed by-and-by." Still the silence. It was insufferable. Her presence stunned his brain. He could not say what he came to utter. Her gaze blistered his eyes, and he felt the lava 1 00 THE BO Y I2f L UE. of her look burning into his very soul. His hatred hardened and charred as he stood there, but he could no more turn from her without her will, than the moon could turn from the great light of the sun at its full. He tried to speak, but words were too tame to express his anger. It would be like a drop of water upon a burning prairie. He could not quench her with words, and in the desperation of an untamed beast, he struck her with his clenched hand, but she scarcely swayed to the blow. Hardly had his arm swung to his side when another blow fell, and with it, the proud son of a Ten- neseean the first dropping in that house, of the fruit of Rebellion. Aurora's face forgot its fire, and her first tears rained upon her father's bosom. Not a word was uttered, but a kiss answered her touch, and then father and son were alone. One silent and shamed, but there was no peni- tence, and the other, bearing an added score of years upon his bent figure, all crowded into five brief minutes, said: "My son, I chastised you because you forgot your manhood in your zeal to proselyte a woman to your political views. For shame ! Your hand, and the words, that fell from the lips of my son, my only boy," and he passed his palm so wearily over his pale brow ; " my pride ! has changed my life, and its pur- poses. Whatever you have planned to do that human- ity does not dictate, you must relinquish, or do it alone, shall not take up the sword now. Your blow decided ' THE BO Y AY BL UE. 1 07 me," and he laid his hand upon that of his offending son as if he would keep it from further shame, but Carryl cast it off with a fling of disdain, and in five minutes was in his saddle to join his fellows, and begin his chivalric life under the new confederacy. How one victim slipped from Carryl Farnam's touch, led by the hand of his sister, and the other \vas translated from his grasp to the upper host, where there are no more strifes, but peace reigneth forever, has been recorded. Aurora's heart glowed and lifted with a new element of warmth and hope, and sank fathoms deep in a sea of sorrow, alternately. It was safer than the leaden stupor of the months gone by. She saw a loving Hand lead- ing her through a dreary way, where if there were re- lentless thorns, there were some velvety resting spots, and a sweep of untainted air, coming between the hot fetid currents of hate. And so she rested, with her poor mother's throbbing head, which had not lifted itself for years, lying upon her arm, soothing the sufferer with the sunniest side of the morning's happenings. Her caressing white hand, and the lulling of her voice, soft- er now for the tears that had fallen through it, coaxed a sweet slumber to the invalid, and a tenderer touch to the face of Aurora. Joe came back with the sinking sun, and as the poor black lad abhorred a vacuum in his stomach, even be- yond the detestation of Nature herself, if that were 108 THE BOY IN SLUE. possible, Aurora could get no information of Mr. St. Remy till his appetite was satisfied. Then between hostile attacks upon his great lips, with his elbows, first on one and then the other, in pursuit of stray bits of food, he managed to articulate : " Joe didn't say nuffin hissef, and com'd back mighty starved, nigh pun a dead nigger, Missy. Met Masser Carryl, an he axM Joe whar'd been. Said e'd been to grave-yard to feed a dead man. Dat's all I'se got to say, an he called me a sassy darkey, an said he'd git it out o' me, an turned Yankee's hoofs arter me, but Mas- ser Ringold said, don't, an he don'ted. Ky ! Ef all de Yankees' like dat are hoss, I don't want to kiss dar shoes wid my blackin brush, more I does'nt. Masser Remy's awful smart, but he couldn't get dis child to talk out loud in dat are hole, not enny. Joe kept tellin, ' Dat's all I'se got to say dat's all I'se got to say,' an com'd away, an here I be mos a corpsus. I'se so empty. O, Lord !" His mistress left him to happiness, with hoe-cake and molasses. So far the day had been better than she feared, but by and by the darkness came, and with it the intelli- gence of the death across the door-way in the home of a lonely woman, and a whitehaired man. It was an- nounced in the form of a polished tale of duty, fearlessly performed, and with it, congratulations to a father for having such a son ! Such an heroic soldier ! THE BO T IN BL UE. \ 99 How a groan would have lessened the tension of pain at Mr. Farnam's heart, but he dare not let the sound escape him, it was too late ! Tugging at his very life was the fearful torture of these two little words too late ! Writhing in the agony of unavailing and unspeakable penitence, still the refrain beat out its syllables too late ! Death and desolation lay in a recantation of political faith, yet had he been alone, or even with Aurora, the fearless ! the self-reliant ! the enduring ! he would have found relief in a renunciation of the hated policy he had adopted, and accepted the consequences, with its risks of life and liberty. But there was a wasting woman, whose every breath hung upon tender care and a shel- tering home, which only utter silence could give her. And then there was the Farnam stubborn adherence to a position. But that oh, that was destroyed by a blow upon his child, from the heavy hand of a man his son ! Another stroke fell with the death of his father's friend, the saint and patriot, and so the Farnam blood forgot that it acknowledged no change, that for gen- erations it had been relentless ! But the silence ! He must keep it. Carryl Farnam kept it to Hobart Ringold. He dare not tell him that he left his mother alone with her dead, nor whose hand was red with guilt! Distance would soon be between 10 HO THE BOY IN BL UK the grave and the murderer. He had learned from Hobart's corrugated brows, and Aurora's flaming face, what the parting between them had been, and he knew too, that already Ringold was counting the price of his epauletts, balancing, and, perhaps, deciding that they were too costly. Military glory may be very dazzling to the gazer, but cankered and rusted to the possessor ! But with him too, it was too late ! Mr. Farnam closed his eyes after this day, to any- thing unusual in his daughter's habits of absence. He quieted the half-speculative curiosity which found ex- pression in the coarse enthusiasm of their lady vi-ii'nrs, and the cruel hints of secret disaffection to secession in- terests on the part of his child, but as no one knew of the disruption between herself and Hobart RingoU, there was no firm base upon which to rest their gossip. It gathered, however, and her haughty reticence angered her acquaintances, and Carryl had forgotten himself once over his wine, and uttered a word or two about a divided opinion at home, and it must mean Aurora. The thunder of the coming storm reached them too late to be averted. She must declare herself, and she did, but not her purposes.. The plea of Portia before the Court of Venice was not more eloquent. There were men who forgot their manhood, and women who did not remember their sex, and its kinder THE BOY IN BL HE. \\\ characteristics. Fanatics, who would have proved their zeal in Salem, in the years we would be glad to have blotted from our history. But alas ! the truth must be recorded. Blithedale was in the court-room, white with years, and a judge, and he looked into Aurora's eyes as if he would crush her from the world with hate. His daughter, handsome and cruel, watched for a token of humiliation upon a face which had come between herself and her ambition. Eliston, the reverend, the pale, thin, dyspeptic divine, who preached doctrines which are not found in the Gos- pel of Peace, and who waved a quenchless torch over his people, leaned near one of his commurieants who was now a prisoner. His son, whose ambition, and not his love, for he never knew the meaning of the word, had once aspired to be the husband of Aurora, looked on with a pleasant sensation of triumph, forgetting how with pity, and tears even, she had put him from her, remembering in her kindness, that it is not a light thing to offer a life to a woman. There stood, too, the sister of this rejected suitor, cold and passionless, but brimming with the venom of politi- cal hate, and disappointed plans. There was Allan Ruyter, and many more, and among them a few frowning men whose garments covered the instruments of death, which would have let out the life of every man who dare reach forth his hand to touch 112 THE BOY IN BL UE. Aurora, or lisp a word that would cancel her right to liberty. The preambles were prolix, but the ubiquitious sen- tences failed to raise a line of the faintest color to the young girl's face. She seemed weary and uninterested, and that was all. The accusations were based upon a lack of expressed sympathy, the whisperings of servants, and a withdrawal from society when these new questions were discussed and that was all. Her time had come. Slowly she rose and gazed upon the crowd. The dull look was burned out, which had strayed vaguely over the room. The composure of the past hour was avenged by fire. Wrath, scorn and pity mingled in her face, and flooded the house. It blazed out as if a vol- cano lay cryptic beneath her eyes, but she stifled it with her strong will, and the lulled flame retired. Her voice was low, clear and cold, intensely cold. She must make her own plea. " I am a woman. I do not engender strife, nor stir men's hearts to strike down those whose feet are already in their graves. I do not preach a chivalry to my friends which expends itself in heroic trials of silent women, whose tongues cannot wag of war, or cry for blood. I am no ghoul, only a woman, who cares for an invalid mother. I am not proving my delicacy daily by un- womanly insults to a flag which has, till now, sheltered THE BOY IN BL HE. 113 me. I was not arraigned under its folds before a public court for a gaping crowd's amusement. I was not asked to express in public, my opinions on political subjects which a woman is not supposed to understand. I have given no aid to my country's enemies, and I never will. I am unshamed by any word of accusation you will be likely to apply to me. I only blush for my people, be- cause they are content to war upon a woman whose crime is silence. An amazing phenomenon ! This is a congrega- tion of fearless men !" Here her. eyes blazed again, and slowly singled every man for a touch, and then cooled. " You can imprison me if you choose. It may add to your happiness. Only one favor I crave. Don't expend all your Christian manliness upon Aurora Far- nam, for there may be some other helpless woman in this pitiful place demanding punishment. I am ready for sentence, but remember, I am only a woman, don't spare me." There was a ruddier glow upon many a cheek, than had lit its southern brown for many and many a day. The speaker of this valiant committee, said there was no cause for arrest, and dismissed the glorious assembly. Aurora took her father's arm, so tenderly and so proud- ly offered for her support, and with as calm and expres- sionless a face, as perfect indifference always gave her, she entered her old home. How the blood of the arm upon which she leaned boiled through and through the 10* 1 14 1HE BOY IX BL UE. distended veins ! How he hated himself because it could be said of him, " He is a secessionist," and in after years it would be recorded, " A Farnam was once a rebel!" If there was pride upon his face, there was none in his heart. The penalty of perjured citizenship was upon him. "Aurora where is Mr. St Remy ? I am not blind. You are sheltering some hunted patriot. I see it in many strange movements of your own, and when I asked Joe where he spent his days, he only whispered a reply, and that was, 'Dats all I'se got to say.' He is under some potent spell, and in strict discipline. You may tell me, child." O how the burden was lifted ! She laid its crushing weight upon the sympathy of her father, and she was rested, assured, and could see away ahead a glimmer of the end to deceptions, and the bondage of speech. Thank God ! " How long, oh how long," was all the cry she uttered now. She thought that time was the only enemy to en- dure, and he would be conquered at last. The winter was coming. The ice might make the way to the hidden man impassible. It would not bo strong enough for use, and besides, it would tell the tale of footprints. The water had been so friendly, and the night so sheltering ! Joe had always gone before the dawn, and come back at all hours. He was too strange always, to make his motions a matter of thought, THE BOY IN BL UE. 115 or his actions noticeable, besides, he was a " useless nigger." He had ceased replying to the questions of any one except Aurora, for the last few months, and he was pronounced failing. The poor wretch was never growing before, and his queer thoughts were very amusing to the girl who seldom found a space to smile in, because of the dull blank in the years before her, and the isolation of her life, which did not find cause for laughter. Hokey was installed ruler over the old " beauty spot" of the valley, called " Cairngorm." Vip labored for the Farnams, at a price that took some of the venom from his temper, but there were times when he seemed to have a supernatural comprehension of the truth. You could see it in a quick out-look into the distance, as if he would bring the mystery back in his eyes, and then it was gone. He could not catch the salient points of the position of affairs, and reason them into a connected thought. It would be a dreary day to his enemies when he knew all. He would enjoy the ven- geance for which he had longed and waited. He would have compensation for the withholding of his freedom, by torturing his possessor. He had ceased to think him dead, and by the systematic way that Hokey admin- istered to the needs of the half occupied people, and regulated the affairs of the estate he became certain that there was a white brain commanding somewhere. Hokey came seldom to the Farnams, and though he was in his 116 THE BOY IN BL UE. position by order of Carryl, he asked no advice of the elder Farnam. Vip reasoned from wrong premises, but the truth lay very near his suspicions. He could not comprehend that the unfettered man's brain was growing strong, and its heavy machinery working steadily and evenly for use, to himself, his people, and his dear old master. " The world grew slowly to the great round hard thing it is," so some one has written, and but few of the chained race will spring upward into the full orbed spirit of human liberty as did this man, whose fetters were broken but a little time ago. Night after night, when the autumn deepened into the chill of winter, Hokey shot his swift small boat under the cliff, and crept up into his master's presence with winter stores, gathered little by little, to escape observation. The black man's heart was so brimming with pity for the haggard restless white fugitive, that it would have been a positive happiness to have given his own poor life to set his old master free. A price, almost fabulous had been put upon his master's head, for supposed information carried to the Federal lines, but this faithful friend never thought of purchas- ing power at such a cost, but, Vip Oh, the golden dreams born of his vague surmises ! Once only, had Mr. St. Remy heard from either of his children. A stranger had given Joe a slip of paper, THE BOY IN EL UE. 117 enclosed in a folded tulip leaf, to give to his mistress It was Remy St. Eemy's delicate tracery. " DEAR FATHER : 1 am safe, well, and waiting. " CAJBNGOKM." It brought mid-day to the cavernous home of Remy St. Remy's father, but the mystery of its coming, who could unravel it? Afterward, when the winter was half wasted, he heard of his son, his " brave boy" as he proudly called him to break the silence of his hiding- place fighting at Milford, Missouri, and he only wished that he stood in the ranks, but waiting had only made the transit impossible. His great strong frame was bent and weakened by captivity and suffering, until he could not have marched a mile. His nights were sometimes shortened, and cheered by his old friend Farnam, who could never find words strong enough with which to confess his mistake his great sin. One month of this dreary, winter went by and not one human voice broke the silence of this lonely hermit- age, for no foot could climb the slippery way leading from the glittering bed of the waters of the Tennessee. It was fortified with a plating of ice, welded with blows from the water, and hardened by the breath of the frost. It was a weary, weary time to the imprisoned man, and almost as terrible to bear by those who loved and waited. Poor Joe felt as if his occupation was gone, and that nobody owned him any more. 1 1 8 THE BO Y IN BL UE. Aurora visited Mrs. Ringold when she thought the bereaved woman could bear to look upon a Farnam, but this journey was made in the night time. It was a sweet mingling of sympathy, though a bitter reminder of griefs too deep for speech, and so they were un- touched in their talk. Neither gave secrets to the other. They might be wrested away in some hour of physical weakness, and were safer in the silence. Mrs. Ringold had no fear of disturbance, because her servants loved and shielded her. Now that her father's voice was silent, there was little to call the. wicked eye of seces- sion to her quiet grief, and retired life. And so they waited and endured, believing that the day of deliver- ance was near. Alas ! THE BOY IN L UK \ \Q CHAPTER VIII. ASUNDER. "Who, Being a man and human, can stand calmly by, And view these things, and never tease his soul For some great cure f" THERE were hordes of men before the Capital waiting for a shower of gold. Health and life, even, fled from a hundred thousand homes to bring it down. But no matter for that, it fell, and the miserable men and women with narrow foreheads, and beastly faces, caught the treasure, and then with plethoric purses, reviled the government for its lack of financial wisdom. They were not wasted days, if the commanders were gathering experience, nor was it wasted treasure, if. the government was learning wisdom. O, there were and are uncounted wrongs, but the right has not been quite conquered. It is terrible to watch the committal of wrongs one cannot right -or hinder, and even the young heart of Elngold felt it when suffering and waiting made him too wise. 120 THE BO Y IN BL UE. He had been in Norfolk disguised as a woman, and brought back intelligence which hastened the work upon our Naval defenses. With Captain Trissilian, he trav- eled Green Briar River crossed Elk Mountain and learned where the enemy were in numbers, and where at this point their rich stores and provisions were hid- den, and Major Webster was sent by General Milroy who wasted by fire the rebel accumulations which had left poverty and hunger in many a Virginia door-way. The same private reconnoissance led the way from Romney to Blue Gap, and the enemy was routed with artillery losses, droves of cattle and valuable stores, and to make their surprise and discomfiture more unendura- ble to remember, Colonel Deering brought every man of his command back to his encampment. Ringold was scarcely known in camp by his name, " The Boy in Blue," and " Blue Bird" were his distin guishing titles. His face had grown to a deeper olive, and a ruddier glow gathered on his beardless lips, but the same deep sad eyes looked out upon the world and its bitter lessons. Only Captain Trissilian ever brought a smile. His genial jargon, and merry wit, his half- boyish, and wholly innocent love of frolic, lifted for a little the boy's heavy sorrow. Who ever listened to the Captain's contagious laugh, felt an answering curl about their mouth, and the sorrowful and suffering, felt the medicine of his presence. " Blue Bird, I saw that animal of yours once before THE BOY IN BL UK \ 3 1 it came to enlist. Its name was Dawn. Must say I didn't see the appropriateness of the title. Perhaps because it could strike daylight with its heels. I thought Satan, would have been as suitable. From the way it caricoled then, with a lady in the saddle, and such a splendid creature as she was too ! I thought a spur would make him magnificent, and it has. That horse and that lady, are so associated in my memory that I did not recognize the beast without her, till I saw him lift his heels to that ugly Cantiniere this morning, and then it all came back to me. It was to a black bundle of calico and bandanna, that he threw out his heels at that time. O, Blue Bird, you should have seen the lady who rode Victory then ! She looked one minute as if she was made of a mixture of rose leaves and electricity, and the next, of rock crystal and granite, a brilliant conglomerate! Afterward, she would be wholly and truly a woman. You could see it in every change of her speaking eyes, and in the tenderness about her mouth. I don't know how it was, but I loved that woman, and yet I scarcely had a right to claim her acquaintance. You need not be so startled, it was not the love a man gives to the woman he asks to be his wife, but after the fashion the Romanists adore a saint. If she were my sister, I should build a shrine for her and set it in a sunny spot, with the shelter of trees above her, so that the gleams of light might be chased by the shadows of the leaves over her face, to keep the 11 1 22 THE BOY IN BL UE. changes perpetual. She is southern born, but you should have seen her eyes dilate under their mysterious fringes, and the delicate pallor deepen to a flush through the pure olive of her face, when she saw the Union sol- diers out ! Colonel Berry foundered his happiness at sea, while on his way home from France with that girl. I saw it, when he brought her home. The case was hope- less. She's promised, and he'll die a bachelor. Such men don't have two attacks of the tender passion. It settles into a chronic form and worries them till they drop. I wonder if her lover is a rebel. If he is, then he is against one union, and she against another, that's sure. Don't you know I am waiting for you to laugh ? It don't pay to build jokes, and have them tumble with- out a noise. Where have your thoughts gone wool- gathering 1" " With the darkies. Now you may laugh at my wit and set me an example of demonstrative appreciation. You were talking about Victory. The subject is more interesting than worn-out nonsense about swains and sweethearts. You understand my preference for the Beast. I despise Beauty. It is so useless in these prac- tical days. My aesthetics were left over the ocean. If this turmoil ends in peace, and I don't find a bullet in some inconvenient spot about me, sometime I'll go back after them, and we will take up the story of to-day. It is a tiresome subject now. Forgive me for quarrel- ing with your themes. I don't often." \ TEE EO Y IN BL UE. \ 33 " Themes ! havn't had but one. Beg your pardon, but there were two, Beauty and the Beast, and you gave your vote to Beast. Where did you find the Beauty ? There ! I've made a combination. They are both in one. I've secured your gratitude, lift your hat." No smile followed the inimitable attitude and tone of Captain Trissilian. He felt guilty of heedlessness, and could think of nothing with which to lead Ringold's thoughts out into a clearer field for conversation. Rin- gold broke the silence that was gaping at them. "Miss St. Remy gave me this animal when she left Mrs. Berry, to join her father. I knew her when a child, and have known her since, but her name does not sound well here, even between us two, who would utter it with respect. She has suffered, and is entitled to silence." Trissilian's face was turned to Che canvas door of his tent, but his hand swung back, and caught the palm of his friend. "All right, boy. I've had little education in the delicate ways of refinement, but I know how to learn, and you are sure, I wouldn't ruffle the wing of a robin, much less bring an unhappy thought to you. I faucifd you were a Frenchman when we first met, because I could find no other solution to the strong attraction you possessed for me, and now that you claim to be aii American, I can't quite understand it. I said to myself 1 24 THE JiOY IN L UE. that morning when we met on our first march, 'I'll be a friend to that lad, and stand between him and every harm that a brother soldier can avert. If I ever wound you again, or you feel the hurt coming, please lay your hand over my wicked mouth, or send that quick eye of yours after me, which threw Jetty into liquidation this morning. O, but didn't that " Peculiar" take on sorrow, easy ? How he does love to adopt neglected articles about the camp, and take charge of occasional luxuries left from extra dinners ! Don't talk about society's contaminations. I believe in innate de- pravity. I got so much of my creed in New England, but its proofs are positive, in the colored people. Don't you believe it ?" He waited a moment and then con- tinued. " I am. boring you, when I meant to talk the black off your brows, but I can't do it, Ringold." " Forgive me. I did not hear your last remarks. You said you would be my friend. I need one, and was wondering if there were any spared to me in my home. Certainly there are none, even if all are brought to me again, whose hearts are truer than yours, and none I would grieve more to lose. I am not strong enough to do duty on the field with you, and I could not if I wished. If I may render service that will save life, and with life, honor; secure success to the Federal arms with a lesser flow of blood, by learning the plans of the enemy, then will the ignoble name of spy, have a better meaning in history, and you will love and respect THE BO F IN BL UK 125 me. Our General possesses humanity, and for this, the curses of the blood-thirsty, roll from the North like streams of lava, but they part into channels before they reach him, and he stands firmer upon his heroic height. O, if the years would hurry by, and vindicate a man who is too godlike in his ways to rouse the all-hails of this fiendish generation ! Thank heaven, there are some patient souls, who see the grandeur of their leader and are satisfied. No, I could not strike a blow or risk a random shot among our Southern foes, unless un- less . I will not utter it. Some thoughts like some resolutions, should be religiously kept in silence, but you will sometime know how true I am to my flag, and how tender to my fellows whose arms were thrust upon them, as manacles are put upon murderers. Not always has captivity been symboled by iron upon the arms, or chains upon the feet, though sometimes even this will be recorded of this unnatural rebellion. It is a captivity of the judgment, and a taint in the imagina- tion, like the poison of hasheesh. When the fever of the soul is gone, it is too late to go backward. Some are driven to strange extremities, not so much from outer circumstances as inner forces, which the soul must obey or be disloyal to itself. I speak this last for my- self, an exile from my home, a soldier in part, because I must do, or die. I see no alternative. We wont talk any more now of this, if you please. The subject is haunted with desolation, and infested with evil soirits. 11* 1 26 THE BOY IN BL UE. I'll go mad if you conjure them often. Pardon my im- petuosity. I did not mean to pain you. Victory wants me, and I must have a dash into the distance. Jetty has been an hour trying to groom the beast, but it is so perverse, and the lad has no comprehension of the way the thing is to be done." Captain Trissilian looked after the strange boy with a feeling of awe, and astonishment. " So unlike any lad ever I met. Deep as the sea, and quite as mysterious. Suffering has given him a man's soul, poor fellow ! and a woman's voice under that boy- ish face." Ringold approached his horse. " Vic ! beauty ! hillo !" The sharp ears were darted forward, and the smooth head turned, like a naughty child whose manner is changed by the call of the mother. So subdued and caressing he became under Ringold's touch, that you would have thought there was magnetism in his slight hand, or a strong will in his light coaxing tones. " Dis is a mighty pooty cretur, but awful skittish to niggers. Pears like he's a bobolishionist. He wants me to feed him, but he doesn't like my sciety overly much. When I fetches my hand for a slap, he puts his eye inter mine an I doesn't strike, I doesn't. Guess I'll have to study strattegy wid dis ere anamile. Wish you'd come close up, masser Ringold, I wants to whis- per to ye. Bet yer life I see'd a Chattanooga man in THE BO T IN BL UE. 127 dat are woman's fixins, what's gone ober de Heights. Qle woman like dat are doesn't come to camp aa trapse an trapse from mornin till night. Hain't nobody but a gal to look arter her. She's awful lumpy, an bolstery, when she gits in an out, but, bress me, when she specte nobody's lookin, she's as frisky as as a gal in her fist back comb. Then she cuddled down mighty quick an drapped her wail when she seed dat are Colonel Berry comin. Ky ! Pears like it was masser Allan Ruyter, only a sight bigger. I was jes keepin my eyes oti him when Captain Keene gin me a lick, an told me to shet my big white peepers. You knows I isn't used to lick- ins, an I'll tumble him de nex time I see's him feeble ober dat are jug in der tall basket, I will. Ky !" Ringold's eyes glared with anger a moment, and then a tender look at Jetty quite cured him, even before he said : " Never mind. Captain Keene is a beast. Is that the suspicious party coming over the brow of the hill? Thank you, Jetty. Your peepers needn't be shut. I am glad you keep them open." The carriage took a circuitous route, and before it came down to the bridge, Colonel Berry stood mounted by the crossing, prepared to accompany the ladies over the Potomac. That night the two rebels slept in Capitol Hill Pris- on, and their plans of our fortifications roughly sketched, 1 28 THE BO Y IN BL US. but perfect in detail, were ashes in the grate of the Sec- retary of War. Allan Ruyter spent the following year at the North. But for Ringold's pleading, he would have gone to his grave. Tender souls are not always just. The rebel's daring plan was thwarted, and there was no vengeance. The thirst for life was slaked by the ap- pealing of a boy, and not by justice. The loneliness of a prison may have brought penitence for there were no burning words from other lips here to keep the fever of rebellion raging. The combat within the soul, none may witness, but the dead sins, and the wrongs secretly fostered, but here stricken powerless and left by the way, are strewn and forgotten, but the consequence, is acknowledged and remembered. General McClellan was ill. A fever kept him in his room, but he attended to his duties, even upon his bed. The first year of war had gone out. There was hope for the future, but, oh, so distant ! Sickness prevailed generally. There were inadequate men in charge of the sanitary arrangements for the soldiers. The doctors were busy, and for the most part skilful. Of the cler- gy a few glorious men there were, but many preferred anything, rather than Heavenly ministrations. The winter was sullen. The rains made transit almost impossible. Fears, vague and horrible, crept into Ringold's heart. The conversation with Captain Trissilian about Reiny St. Remy, troubled him. It THE BOY IN JSL UE. 129 was conjuring a ghost. It forced him to think of things he would gladly have dropped out of his recollection. Fancies reared by terrible pictures .of southern cruelty, made his pulse run wild. He was sometimes almost mad. The Future's impenetrable veil tortured him in- cessantly. The whence of all this sorrow, irritated and humiliated him. The whither of the Reapers of Death no one dare imagine, least of all this sad-eyed exile. He could achieve little, though he dare attempt any- thing. He felt the strong clasp of Colonel Berry's friendship ajid confidence, more than that, an unspeaka- ble interest in his military career which longed to ex- press itself in active personal sacrifice for him, but he could not find the way. He saw a grave between him- self and the next spring time, if this quietude of the army was continued. He had heard that there were dear old friends, now deadly enemies, but a little way from the spot where his brain was burning into despair. His interview with Carryl Farnam, and an elaborate account of the wretched braggart's adventure found its way to him through Richmond prints. 'This crushed the very pride of his life out of him. If all had fallen so low who were reared in the valley of his old home, and gathered their love of truth and honor together with himself, why should he care to redeem them to a Republic of which they were unworthy ? He was only saved from utter hopelessness, by a consciousness held in his heart by the merciful angels, that there were 130 THE BO Y IN BL UE. some by the bluffs and reaches of the lovely Tennes- see who were still true to their manhood, true to their country, and who would cling to the dear old flag, and fight for its folds, or die under its falling stars. He asked to be transferred to the Western army. To be sure, there were no reasons why he should not go whenever he had honorably fulfilled his engagements with Colonel Berry. There was no time mentioned in his arrangement with him, but he did not know how he had entered this strong man's heart, from which, to wrench himself away now, would leave a gaping, aching spot, or he might have had no courage with which to utter his request. He had unconsciously made many an hour of sunshine in the colonel's canvas home, and yet it was seldom that either smiled. When only the silence was left the colonel, after the usual good-night, there was always an hour of mysterious loneliness, and an entire inability to withdraw his thoughts from the strange boy. He could not penetrate the life or purposes of the young man, nor did he really wish the veil lifted, but why did his spiritual presence seem so palpable, when he had gone. There is a spiritual element surrounding some people, that lingers as if they had gone only in a physical sense, and left their souls with ours. If to give our inner thoughts, the created or inspired fancies and ideas of our best selves, to another, is not sharing the immortal with them, and permitting them THE BOY IN BL UK 131 to become a real portion of our existence of our im- perishable us, and indivisible with us, how is it? The deepening shadows on Ringold's face, and the suffering which wrote itself with unmistakeable hiero- glyphics about his mouth, appealed to the colonel's pity. He wrung his aid's small hand with a grasp into which was compressed the great sorrow he endured to say yes, but he made no effort to detain him. The col- onel would not permit Ringold to make this journey alone to a strange field with that delicate reticence of the lad's nature unguarded from the roughness of cam- paigning. General McClellan furnished all needful recommenda- tions, but to Colonel Berry was left the care of provid- ing against loneliness. A thought had flitted over the surface of Colonel Berry's mind many times, but now it sunk down into a serious consideration. Captain Trissilian was fitted for a higher rank. It would benefit the service. His own men were attached to him, and they would grieve at parting, but would love his memory too well ever to be anything less than they were. Pie had resolved to make an effort to procure him a higher position with General Grant, and in a few days he succeeded. He had detained Ringold, under one pre tence and another, until he was certain of success, or defeat to his plan. For a moment Captain Trissilian 132 THE BOY IN BLUE. thought an eagle upon his shoulder too dearly pur- chased by this parting from the soldiers who grew by his side among the New England hills, but it glittered and gleamed, and coaxed him with its pretty tinsel, and then the knowledge of Ringold's determination to be nearer his people in the fray, or may-be in their fall, almost reconciled him to the change. There was a promise of stir and strife on the Mississsippi, and he was weary waiting. Colonel Berry announced the change to Trissilian's company, and told them that a fitness for a higher place, and the need of good men in important positions, and not personal ambition, raised the rank of the beloved officer. He told them too, of the regret which this part- ing brought to the man who loved them all too well for the possible happenings of war. There were no shouts of enthusiastic admiration, for tears choked their utterance. Each man parted with Captain Trissilian with a wring of his hand, and a " God bless you, Cap," which quite broke him down. There is an expression often used but sadly out of place /or the most part which includes the word " unmanned." A soldier who weeps when the highest elements of his nature are stirred, proves his courage. " The bravest are the tenderest." The parting with his men over, the future brightened THE BOY IN BL HE. \ 33 and he could catch gleams of military glory coming through this Western opening. That night, the last one between Colonel Berry and his aid, was full of suppressed feeling, and a long look ahead. The dim light of the camp fell upon neither face, for each avoided revelations of expression which would leave pain in the memory. The colonel thanked Ringold for the faithful aid he had rendered him, and the great secret service he had given his country. He told him that he was a remind- er to him of a dear friend whose name must be un- spoken in camp, but for whose sake, as well as for his love to the land he was proud to call that of his nativity, he should live or die in arms. This separation was hard to endure, but it was best so. He hoped their mutual friend would be satisfied with the change, if by any possibility the event should reach her. He did not doubt but she had found a passage to her home, or she would not have left her friends in such painful suspense in regard to her safety. A shudder passed over Colonel Berry's strong frame, and shook the table upon which both leaned, with shaded faces. Ringold's quick nature overflowed. He laid his brow upon his arm where it rested, and sobbed in great strong vibrations of feeling. The colonel reached over his hand and laid it upon the thick black curls, but the Boy in Blue lifted it, and shrank away. Colonel Berry felt this withdrawal from human sympathy, and under 12 1 34 stood it, at least he measured it by his own soul's un willingness to share its sorrows with another. After a time the sobs died out into a dull heavy sigh, convulsive still, but a proof that the storm had passed, though the waves could not be lulled in a moment. " Colonel Berry," he said, under the surf-beat of emotion, " you have been very kind to me, perhaps as much for the sake of our friend, or. more, than for any service I have been able to render you. She will be grateful always. I know her, she does not forget a kindness. I have been able to glean something of her since we parted. She is safe," here the colonel rose suddenly, and faced Ringold, with an eagerness, the lad had never seen in his superior's eyes before, and his words failed to finish the sentence. The colonel's face asked for further information, but it did not come. A grey pallor fell down upon the lips of Ringold, and spread to his forehead slowly, like a film, and then was lifted, and a deep carnation took its place. This quick ebb of life had only come back when the colonel's strong arm lifted him from his camp stool, and pillowed his head for a moment upon a soldier's cot. The next instant Ringold was saying : " Good night," perhaps the good night of a lifetime. They might greet each other with a good morning that would have no ending, when they faced each other again. Who would dare think of it, if the truth did not usher itself uncalled into the presence of parting friends ? THE BOY IN BLUE. 135 " Good night, Ringold. God keep you in His tender- est care. You are not strong enough for the life you are enduring, nor strong enough to stay. I understand you now, and I may speak it. It will be no wrong. You are older at heart than you are in your face. You love Remy St. Remy." (How he mistook the emotion ! Men in love are so blind, and yet believe they see so clearly.) " It is a useless affection. I pity you, and I may for I love her too, with the strength of manhood, and a hope- lessness that makes existence almost empty. You are young. Forget her if you can. She is promised to another. She will not cancel her word unless he should prove a traitor, to his country and then " " He is. Good night and good bye, Colonel Berry," Ringold's voice was low, and sweet, and rich, cadenced to a sadness that held happiness in its melody, as he uttered these words. Fancy lifted a mirage before the stars that night, and colonel and aid looking up, each from his tented door, saw the future. Ringold kept his pictures in his heart, and we will not bring them to the light. Colonel Berry, pitied, and loved the lad, but he was a lad and he did not feel angered if Ringold had left his heart in the Tennesseean's eyes. " How could he help it," he muttered, " poor child ! how could any one help it, she was so lovely, so womanly, and so beautiful." The barren winter night grew soft, and seemed through the dusk to be clothed with summer raiment, and the 1 36 THE BOY IN EL UE. seige-circled city to become a resting place for happy pilgrims. Sorrow had its solace to-night, and faith and hope were aa infinite balm. Reconciled to the present, and exalted for the future, by one sentence, " He is," Col- onel Berry was satisfied. Heaven stoops to good men's souls sometimes, to rest and soothe them with its tender caresses. At dawn, Colonel Trissilian and his aid, Ringold of Tennessee, as his pass read, and Jetty, grinning and chattering with irrepressible excitement, flew over the distance which lay days and nights between Washing- ton, and where, the bomb-shells were to pelt the walls of Fort Henry, and force submission from Donnelson. Thank Heaven their first view of Death's harvesting was not so terrible, and the patient willingness of our fallen men to let their lives ebb out for victory, made the conflict easier to think about when the groans had died away, and the sufferers were at rest. Action cuied the steady dull pain of thinking, and waiting, which was taking drop by drop, the life of the Boy in Blue. There came at times a dreamy expression, or rather an out-look, a present expectancy in his eyes, so his colonel thought, and he sought amid his own new sensa- tions for the reason of the glow. He doubtlesss attrib- uted it to their approach to a spot where they might meet a few of the loyal men who had escaped over the THE BOY IN BL HE. \ 37 mountains to fight under the Federal colors, and per- haps his kindred. They arrived at Cairo on Sunday, the second day of February, and the colonel reported to General Grant, and was assigned to immediate duty. At the hotel in Cairo there was a thrill of excitement. Jetty had waded the sloughs and covered himself with layer after layer of the liquid clay and floating dingi- ness of this filthy city, which lightened, rather than deepened his color. He was, in fact, so black that Col- onel Trissilian insisted that he could not see him at all unless his face was smeared. He came to his master's apartments, which he always shared with a cot or blank- et, and dumped his individual bundle of dirt and invisi- bility plump on the floor. " Lor, de blessed day is comin, sartin. I see'd it a flyin down dem are stairs when I com'd inter de hall, an, sure as def, if I could a got my big mouf apart, I should have split mysef, mebby, 'cause J see' d Masser Berny St. Remy a goin out, an he jes flew'd onto his hoss an was off" like s'cat, afore I could say ' how'do.' Den when dis chile was enamost dead, cause I'se so struck, dat are yaller gal of Missy Ringold's, what she sent oflf from Masser Hobart, cause he fool with her pooty curls too much, and she come'd right up to me, an she says, says she, ' What's de matter,' says she. ' Pears like you'd got a fit. You look,' says she, ' like a Chatta- nooga boy, you does,' says she. ' I knows I'se seen dat 12* 1 38 1HE BOY IX BL UE. are face afore. Dare ain't many got so good a color. What's yer name V says she. ' No such ting,' says I. ' My name's Jetty Jetty, dat's all, an I doesn't spect to have any more till till my master gits to to to be married or killed, or sumfin,' and den I runned right 7 ' O in here, an I'se sittin here. Does yer see me 1" Ringold did see him, and a glow of hope lit the quiv- ering heap with touches of grace that were certainly seen only in the fancy of the Boy in Blue. All that day was spent in hurrying from superior to inferior officers' quarters for tidings of Abernethy St. Remy, but nothing could be gleaned of his whereabouts. He, too, was in secret service. For once, too much faith had been placed in the dis- cretion of Jetty. The busy swarm of people, and the merriment below won him from the quiet of the cham- ber, where he was bidden to keep himself, and Ringold entered under the bright gas-light of the hall chandelier, to get a glimpse of Jetty in a huge chair in a side apart- ment, serving the cause of science in a phrenological way. Standing over him was a thin specimen of the long haired Apostle of Bumps and Organs, endeavoring to seperate the wooly thatch of Jetty, and prove by the " corrugations of the negro's cranium," that this speci- men of the pure African, was worthy to rank with the largest sized brain that ever wore a white cover. The perceptive and reflective indications he compared TEE BOY IN BL UK 139 with his own. That was accepted by the audience with applause, and the man of science bowed his acknowl edgments of the appreciation, but somehow Jetty de- murred. " Dis chile like you 1 Spect not. De Lor wouldn't a done sich a ting to a poor black what ye call em like I is. Please, sah, I'd like to go to my missy, no, my massa." ' Be quiet. Your race is too modest. You are in many particulars like myself, but .you are unconsciously an undeveloped man " " Lor ! O Lor ! Spect Fse nothin o' the sort." " I repeat, an undeveloped man of great mental pow- er. You are stronger because of your deeper color. You are remarkably moral. Truth and honesty are in your face." " Je-ru-sa-lum ! What ud massa Ringold give to know dat ar ? Spects he'd hire a boy to Jug de stealin an lyin too, dat dis chile performs now and den. Don't tell me any more, cause folks as is too good, dies, an de white folks puts em in books." " You are facetious, but manly." " O Lor ! Please to don't. I cau't stan any more. I shall bust, an den '' " Jetty," said a voice by his side, " you can go with me to our apartment." " Dare you take this man from the hands of science, whoso sacred voice is revealing to him his heritage 1 40 THE BOY IN BL UE. his brain treasures in fact, unveiling the mysteries of his being to his wondering vision 1" This burst of indignant eloquence brought no reply only by a gesture of that little hand of Ringold's, and an imperious flash of the eyes that loosened the Phreno- logical fingers from Jetty's wool, as if they had been electrified. The negro followed the motion of his master with a merry chuckle, that was so full of satisfaction with the apparent tyranny, that there ran a thrill of admiration through the group of witnesses at the power and beauty of the boy. " How dare you control that man made in the image of God ?" said the tragic man of science. " Because he is mine, sir," Ringold replied in his deep impressive tones. " There is no more bondage out of Rebeldom. You are a secessionist. Where is the Provo:>t Marshal. Have him arrested." " As you please. That negro is mine to do with him as I choose, because he adopts my will as his own. In Europe he was free, and gave himself to me with a de- votion that you have neither heart or brain to compre- hend. You have measured his mind by your own, and very likely you are correct, but his heart is as like yours as sunshine for a whole world, compared to a fire bug. My room is thirty-four . Send for the marshal," THE BO Y IN L UK ] 41 and bowing, the haughty boy left the room, with an up- roarious cheer following him up stairs. " O Jetty," and the voice fell into a tearful tone when the door was once closed, " why will you subject me to such disagreeable people V " De Lor knows I didn't go for to do it, but it was so lonesome like, an Sunday night allus makes me tink ob home an somebody, an how we was allus meanderin about dis time, wid somebody's arm about somebody's pusson, an singin meetin tunes, 'cept now and den, when somebody was say in how dey was reflectin on his thought, an contemplatin de lilies ob de field, an mean- ed don't go for to laugh some lilies isn't w hite, dey's yaller, an mebby somebody looks yaller in de moonlight, least-wise, somebody lubed somebody, an dat made somebody hansum to somebody. I won't go no more where I says I won't an I don't tell no lies, dat are man says I doesn't. Let's say our prayers an go to sleep, honey chile. De angels knows I didn't go for to make you look sorry," and so the good creature forgot all the grand things that the man of science said, and went to sleep like a bird. But Ringold's pillow was untouched all that long night, and the morning witnessed a change in their hotel. There was no lingering in this department. They were too far away from conflicting military opiniona They were as one head and one heart in the cause. 1 42 THE BO Y IN BL UE. General Grant and Commodore Foote were sufficient for their positions. On Monday afternoon six gun-boats and several steamers left Cairo, and puffed up the Ohio river, and entered the Tennessee after nightfall. Colonel Trissilian was becoming speedily accquainted with the details of his position, and mastering the plan of attack. General Grant, with that penetrative and almost supernatural look into a fellow-soul, measured and comprehended the strange young officer, and gave him his command with a hearty, soldierly welcome. TEE BO T IN BL UE. 143 CHAPTER IX. IN BATTLE. 11 Mark yon ship far awa .sleep on the wave, in the last light of 1 With all its hushed thunder shut up." f day, " And you Whom this song cannot reach with its transient breath. Deaf ears that are stopped with the hrown dust of death, Blind eyes that are dark to your own deathless glory; Silent hearts that are heedless to praise murmured o'er ye, Sleep deep ! sleep in peace ! sleep in memory ever! Wrapped each soul in the deeds of its deathless endeavor." THURSDAY the contest began. Commodore Foote with his clad warriors lay in the river fishing for harm- less torpedoes, while the swarming transports touched shore just below Panther Island, and sent the troops to their first warlike experience, in light fighting costume, but heavy with cartridges. Nearly all the soldiery were fresh from the innocent employments of rural life and brimming with self im- molation for the waiting altar. 144 THE BOY IN BLUE. Brief as the moments of swift planning are in the brain of General Grant, and speedy as are their execu- tion, this time he was too late. Knee deep in mud, the brave fellows hurry on. Speed is impossible. The will strains every muscle, and eager eyes of platoon after platoon are straight ahead reaching after victory, or death. It is a spectacle that neither pen or brush can perfectly portray. Slow, oh so slow ! Not a step falters, every foot is lifted from its deep print in the watery soil with an effort like that of Marshal Ney's hastening from Moscow. Not a man of them would have flinched from the thinly frozen Dneiper in that magnificent retreat. It was written in their faces. A roar a swift rushing sound, and like the myste- rious flight of a meteor, a projectile spans an arch, and crashes out of sight. They know the battle has begun and they are not in position to smite the enemy in the rear. The cannon upon the steamers could not restrain their impetuosity, nor hush their thundering reproaches till the hurrying army came up. Iron lips of Colum- biads call to the rebels, and they send back deathly replies. Contending cannon claim of each other sub- mission, but neither yields. Pivoted guns throw de- fiance to the screaming shells from brave fellows in the Fort. Every winged ball is a burden to the impatient infantry, but the earth resists them. On they spring THE BO Y IN BL UE. 145 and boom after boom marks the terrible music of their march. Colonel Trissilian's impatient nature rebels against the inevitable. O the weary distance ! Ringold's lips were close and colorless. Now and then a tear glistened upon his long dark lashes, but a quick flutter of the lids shook it off, and few suspected the eager spirit that was supressed under that young mask. Victory struggled as if he partook of his mas- ters checked will. Here and there, Ringold reached down his strong pitiful hand to help a fellow soldier who sunk too deep in the mire, and then the sweet tender look that belonged to better days fell over his face, as if its right to stay should no longer be questioned, but the next roar of shell shook the light out of his eyes, and off his lips, and he was again transformed to steel. The thunder peals are prolonged, sound flows into sound, and the reverberations hold every second of an hour. It tingles through their veins, and leaps into their muscles, but they cannot lift a hand to help the coming triumph. Wait patiently, eager souls, a little time, and then greater conquest, and a richer harvest for the Pale Reaper of brothers by blood, but enemies in hate. Like blows from a Titan, steel-sinewed, fall the shot 13 1 46 THE BO Y IN BL UE. and shell, upon the few who would not desert their flag at Fort Henry. Smiting the gun-boats with their mar- velous rebel aim, they plunged ^through and throu-h their armored sides, but still the wheels came, nearer, closer, with the flame leaping incessantly from their open mouths as if to swallow the resisting enemy. A deathly pall of white vapor wraps the gunners upon the Essex, but it does not burn away their patriot- ism. They are willing to die even thus, if victory follows. The rebels find courage in the wild cry of agony upon the water, and renew their fierce cannon- ading, but their aim is unsteady, and the three iron browed captors creep nearer and nearer yet. Their commander has said he will conquer, or sleep with his men in the bed of the Tennessee, and he never swerved from a resolution. The intervals of resistance are longer, but the shot and shell from the river take no heed of their warning, till the rebellious flag droops, and the pitiful, the humili- ating white banner goes slowly up. Fort Henry is conquered ! The earth is torn and furrowed across the embank- ment, but the proud bearer of our emblem leaps over the chasms as^if he were winged, and waves the II.-.], White and Blue over a rebel parapet to the glad eyes and exultant voices of triumphant Federals. But the lagging soldiery are not in time. More than THE BO Y IN L UE. 147 seven thousand secessionists have escaped at the plead- ing of cowardly hearts, and fled wildly across the coun- try to Fort Donnelson. The very earth resisted the approach of our brave fellows, and only a courageous few of the enemy, undor General Lloyd Tighlman, stood by their guns to the last, and surrendered like men, before our army came up. It was not very comforting after so desperate a strug- gle through the mud, to find only deserted baggage, uneaten dinners, unfinished letters, and next to nobody. Ringold's nature was irrepressible. He forgot the disappointment of the moment, and himself, and of- fered sympathy and prayers to the dying, and assist- ance to the suffering, with a Christian forgetfulnesa of every division of purpose, and sentiment. Every face was searched for a familiar feature, and then cov- ered away solemnly from the stare of noon-day, with a tenderness that remembered how darkness had fall- en somewhere, and some soul would henceforth walk in perpetual loneliness to the door of the Hereafter. The beautiful softness of Ringold's expression pictured itself in many a heart, with one swift look that day, and it will come back in some twilight of memory to those who caught its transfigurement, and they will fancy it was like the angels who show us their faces in our tear- ful dreams. Colonel Trissilian saw him in one of the brief pauses 1 48 THE BOY IN BL UE. of that busy afternoon, and with a reverence which he endeavored to cover with railery, said : " You will be translated soon, if that language in your eyes can be relied upon. You look like Leonardo de Vinci's St. John. I don't wish you to be detailed for upper service just yet, so take up earthiness if you respect military orders from your inferiors." Not the faintest smile touched the lip which was quivering with pity and human sympathy, but he re- plied in a voice Trissilian had never heard before, so like a woman's ! " These are fallen men, and no more enemies. I wish my worthless life could bring them back to to loyal- ty. Of what use am I ? I will not take the life of a man, that is I hope I will not. I could not go home, even if I knew I had a home. My death is desired by those who loved me once, and I am almost hated by my- self to-day. If you have any duties for me, let me have them now. Idleness will murder me after so horrible a sight." " Poor lad ! It is my own first glimpse, and we'll try and bear it together. We will follow the cowards to Donnelson, and retrieve ourselves for to-day's tardi- ness. We are in light marching order, and sleep with only cloud-covers to-night. The poor fellows lying here wont feel it. I almost wish we were Romanists, to pray for their souls. Our regiment leads off in this division. THE BOY IN BL UE. \ 49 Don't look at them again. I wish I had left you at Cairo, my boy, but selfish friendship guided 7ne." " Only friendship, Colonel T " Only that." " I am glad you said it. The words will drive some of to-day's sorrows from my aching ears. I would not have staid at Cairo. I could not remain away from you, now that you are all I've got to say friend to me," and the pitiful look waned, as if this was all of life in those desolate days. Fifteen thousand men were ordered to march, it was a weary way, but not with distance so much, as by the hard paths over rocky ledges, and deep ra- vines, where beds of last year's leaves, dead, wet and slippery, or frozen and rough, alternated with the days' and nights' resting spots under the stars, in that first brief march which was to end in triumph to thou- sands, but to some, graves on the slopes of these same brown hills. There was a fierce will in the patience and endurance of these men, who for the first time slept upon the icy ground, uncovered. Their duties had always ended in sheltered nights and warm coffee, but they only laughed over their fate, because fifteen thou- sand soldiers slept in one bed, and under one blue cover. Jetty gathered leaves, and made a nest by the warmest side of a fallen tree, for his master, though it was with a face in which one could find little Christian submission, or heroic fortitude. A thousand fires sent up their 13* 1 50 THE BO Y IN JSL UE. ruddy tints into the trees, and threw out long tongues of warmth, and lapped at the cold tired fellows, whose weariness vanished with its caressing. The winter seemed to have spared its bitterness till now. The cold wind found every crevice in the blue cloth armor, and entered in. The blankets were too heavy by day, and too light by night. Colonel Trissilian began to feel the same old pity for his men, which he hoped was killed by a change of command. The uncom- plaining fellows whose shivering bodies would not admit the plea of suffering in words, sent a perpetual pain to the officer's heart. The eagle upon his shoulder did not soothe him. He cheered his men with merry counsel and glowing smiles, but they only came from his lips, so sorry was he down in his heart. Six days of patient endurance were passed in these forests, and deep valleys, which intervened between themselves and their next battle-field. Colonel Birges, with his regiment, belonged to this division. They were western hunters, whose rifle-point meant death, and proved its meaning. They had seen little of the luxury of modern households, and slept wherever night found them, unless they laid awake to pick off enemies by moonlight. This hunting men for game, just suited their taste, provided the men were enemies. They were steady nerved, quick on foot, reliable, and worshipped their leader. THE BOY IN SLUE. 151 They belonged to General Lauman's brigade, but went wherever they were needed. They wore a close grey uniform of felt, and cap of the same color, fitting a closely cropped skull. Their commands were received from a whistle, and each man carried one with which to reply, or signal his fellows. Colonel Birges looked into the face of the Boy in Blue, and marked him for a recruit. There was a steady expression to the young man's eye, that fascinated him. He desired to win him to the ranks of the sharp- shooting regiment. He endeavored to charm him with the wild ways of their warfare. He could not be con- tent with a refusal, and speculated many an hour in the silence of his blanket under the stars, upon the marvelous power of Ringold's manner, and his strange aversion to participation in the contest. He knew it was not cowardice, and so the mystery bewildered him. He determined to captivate him, and enjoy the delight of seeing a rebel brought down by the young Tennesseean's aim. When they rested, or before the march in the morn- ing, Colonel Birges coaxed Ringold to practice with a rifle, and the lad consented, because he understood that his secluded habits and silent ways, were not as pleasing to Western tastes, as to the less demonstrative, and less communicative New Englanders. Colonel Birges was a sympathetic man, though he would have resented such an imputation. He was tender under the coating of his profession, and when his 152 THE BOY IN BLUE. friendship grew, it went downward to permanent root first, and then rose into acts which were always noble, and if the opportunity came, they were god-like. His discipline was perfect, but it needed no severity. The graceful manners and elegant expressions of Ringold, appealed to the latent refinement of his own soul. Before the coming battle broke forth, he watched Ringold with as much solicitude as if he had been his own brother, and too tender for the field, but the march ended, and they were in safety. Fort Donnelson, which is surrounded by hills, has earth-works skirting the inner borders. Trees had been felled to form abatis, and the lithe limbs interwoven thickly together. There was a long line of field works, protected on the outer line by rifle-pits, lying upon the crests of the hills. It is very steep on the exposed side, and beyond this from the fort, there is another crest not so high as the former. There are trenches protected by heaped logs banked with earth, and impenetrable to bullets. This slope is almost impassible. The ground rolls, as if it had been curved into this succession of knolls by the slow upheaval of an earth- quake. There is no place for a battalion drill for many miles. It was just afternoon of the twelfth of February, that our cavalry came in sight of the rebel fortifications. TEE BO Y IN BL UE. \ 53 Not an enemy was found outside, but swarms of them made the interior of the intrenchments look like masses of dark swaying earth. They were on the watch for a surprise. Fort Henry delegates warned them. They carried force in their numbers, if not in their capabili- ties of defence. Many of our men left their bivouac on the next sunny morning with the soft warmth of the sky prom- ising future comfort, who were to sleep under a gather- ing shroud of ice at night, and waken at the reveille never anymore. The soft dawn deluded the poor fel- lows, and they cast aside their outer garments for the fray, and too many did not need them again. Many more, nearly perished before the dawn of the second day's fighting. Before the purple of the morning had changed to the golden glory of the sun's coming, the Fort sent out jets of blaze, then a tower of smoke rose up into the sky, and through it a horrible whirr and hissing, and a bombshell plumps itself into the camp fire of Colonel Oglesby's brigade. This was the gauntlet of the enemy, and every man sprang to the challenge. This division held the leading position, and nearest the crest of the enemy's surroundings. From a hill a half a mile away, we answered them with our heavy-voiced guns. Furiously the argument was carried on, and both artillery men pointed their batteries with marvelous skill. While Major Cavender 1 54 THE BOY IN J1L UK Avas sighting his gun, a shell fell by his side, but he did not lift his eye, and his own messenger touched the spot whence his iron visitor came. Four shells burst above and beside him, before he would move his piece. Then, as if angered at being disturbed, his enthusiasm was re- doubled. The rebels fire at random into the thickets, but our men pick them off like birds upon leafless trees, under a sharp hunter's fire. Now and then a man falls within our lines. Poor fellows ! they have not known the meaning of war be- fore, but they do not stop to comprehend all that it is. That will come to them sometime on guard, when by a lonely fire during a dreary night. They do not stop to think "good-bye" to the children waiting in quiet homes, and wives praying by secret altars. Their flag means everything now. God, country, friends, and hearthstones. Closer and closer ! Commanders did not then know their men, nor how like the veterans at Quatre Bras they could face without flinching, the fire of the foe. The old guard of Waterloo could have been no steadier than the Federals who fought and fell at Donnelson. Colonel Birges' men crept up in front of the rebel lines. Nearer and nearer to the trenches they crawl, and every whirring pellet of lead is a doom to some one behind the breastworks. TEE BO T IN BL UE. \ 55 The rebels are soon silent. It is sure death to lift a musket over their crest. A fearful night came down upon them. Ringold, who had been all day at General Grant's headquarters writing dispatches under dictation, went out into the storm, against the General's wishes, to share the fate of the soldiers. No food but hard bread and water to-night, but he did not mind it, for himself. Jetty was coaxed to sleep between two fallen oaks, while the Aid went off through the trees, looking into the faces of the dead, and finding some to whom life might be brought back with warmth and care. Moanings here and there between the swaying of the leafless boughs and the howling of the fierce storm, rose up to greet his approach. He could give little assistance alone. Jetty was roused from his early slumbers, and his warm sympathy fully awakened him after the first shake. Colonel Trissilian and these two, traversed the wooded fields all the night through, carrying some to the improvised hospitals, laying some in an easy pos- ture to die, and staunching the blood, and staying the life of others. It was when the dark was deepest, and the storm wailed wildest, that Ringold's foot touched a fallen man, lying upon the slippery leaves, with his blood coloring the snow as it fell. Ringold stooped to touch his heart, and the flutter was perceptible, but so faint ! 1 56 THE BO Y IN BL US. " Can you speak, my poor fellow ?" " Ay, a little." " Can you hold on to life till I bring a stretcher to carry you to shelter ?" " No, my friend, I do not wish to be stirred now that the bitterness has passed, and the pain gone. I would have chosen to live till we conquered, but it is no mat- ter." " Have you any wish that a friend could see granted ? If you have, youinay trust me. I will do anything that a poor exile of this wretched state can, for you." " Of this state ? so am I," here he brightened a little, and his words were not so far apart. " I came from among the hills. I have a mother there, and she loved me till this hateful Rebellion parted us. She'll love me when I am dead. My father never cared for me, because I loved pictures too well. There is one in my bosom. Don't let any one take it from me. It will make my soldier's grave holy. My mother's name is Mrs. Allan Ruyter of Chattanooga, can you remember ? I am going. God bless her ?" Ringold placed his handkerchief tenderly over the dead soldier's face, and sat beside him and wept the bitterest tears of his life. This was once his friend. One of the sweetest souls had gone back to heaven, that had ever been shut in a house of clay. More like an exalted woman ho, seemed to Ringold's memory, than a man of a score and a half of years. THE EOT IN BL US. 1 57 Loving the beautiful with the fervor of a Claude Lo- raine, young Buyter could not "be a coarse strong man to dabble in the filth of political ambition. So his fath- er hated him. After an hour's deep sobbing had wearied, and then rested the burdened heart of the watcher, he rose and parted the soldierly vestments of the dead, and rever- ently lifted the picture from the still heart, hoping that the tidings of so much devotion would soften the grief of some one heart-broken. He opened the guarded case with its .golden clasps, and it was a painted miniature of Remy St. Remy ? ****** A half hour afterward Ringold raised the handker- chief, and kissed the smooth beautiful forehead, and folded the raiment close over the still bosom. It was morning. Before mid-day this tired body, wrapt in a blanket, was laid in a grave alone, away from his fallen comrades because he had been alone in life, and because because the exile of East Tennessee and Jetty dug the grave in the frosty air of that unfriendly time, and strewed leaves over the dead, before they cast in the earth which was to enfold him always. Sometime when Peace shall sit upon those gpeen hills, and happiness comes back to Tennessee, the children will wonder why the verdure is greener, and the grass longer and silkier about that little spot, than upon other 14 1 58 THE BO T IN BL VE. sunny places on those fair slopes, but there will be no sculptured sentence to tell them, nor any voice to repeat the story of a man who lived, and was misunderstood, loved and was unhappy, fought for his country's liberty and was glorified by the upper watchers, but unrecord- ed and uncrowned among the heroes of the grand to- day. Mrs. Ruyter is childless now, heaven having exhaled the spirits of her children, and her husband lies in a Northern Prison, a traitor to his country. She is not crushed. Not a tear touched h|r cheek when the message of Ringold reached her long afterward. She is as cruel as a woman's heart can be, when turned to gall, a fanatic in the cause of Southern Rights, as she misnames her creed. She reviles all good things that do not conspire to add glory to rebellious arms, and hails as a God-send, every momentary success of their wicked plans. This day each army buried its dead, and except that now and then there was heard the whizz of an unerring ball sent fromBirges' men, silence reigned. Half frozen, hungry men, jaded by superhuman exertion, and wea- ried with sleeplessness as well, maintain their position, but look anxiously down the Cumberland. Food for the fighting men, and comforts for the mangled, had not yet come. Only one gun-boat rocked in the stream. TheCaron- delet was waiting for her companions. THE BO T IN BL HE. \ 59 By and by a flash, a white column of smoke went up into the sky, and a shell lay in the bosom of Fort Don- nelson. There were thousands of bosoms that glowed with gladness, and answered with shout after shout of joy, at this signal of coming help and coming food to the fam- ished. A renewed life to them was this tossing of a shell but to the enemy ah, who can understand all that it dealt to them ? In mid-afternoon the ironrbound gun-boats, four in number, with their three attendants, approached the fort. A curve in the Cumberland brought them under a raking fire from the famous gunners in the fort. The river was too far below the ramparts for us to throw shell within, and only the batteries close upon shore felt the steady fire from our guns. They were soon silenced. Havoc, the bloodiest that these combatants had ever witnessed, followed the pathway of the shot and shell. Closer, closer came the iron faces of the steamers, but above them, pointing like the finger of Fate, from the hill, were the waiting Columbiads, with their mouths filled with peremptory messages. The brave commander, forgetting his wound, seized the helm of his broken flag-ship, held the steamer with Roman heroism, and tried to keep her to the stream, but a ball wrenched this last hope away. Just five minutes more, and the eight gun battery would have been 1 GO THE BO Y IN BL US. stilled, and the trenches held not an enemy. But these few minutes ! The signal for retreat was raised by the flag-ship, because only the Louisville would answer the pilot's will. One hour's contest, and so much lost ! These dis- abled gun-boats, and fifty-four men, either dead or wounded of our brave follows ! How their Christian commander sorrowed for the dead, and comforted the living, can never be written. He has found them now, and we grieve because he went so soon. General Grant must entrench himself, and wait for other water-help to come. He could starve the enemy, if he could not shell them out of their position. It would be a bloodless victory. The leaders in the fort understood this plan of subju- gation, and a combination of attacks to drive them back, and obtain a victory, or escape with whatever they could of their army, was decided upon. General Johnson led the column, and a terrible day began. The snow was ground under the heels of frantic men, maddened by the flood that its white gleams showed them, and which the frozen earth would not drink. Officers fell like lopped limbs from before pruning knives, but the unharmed are cool and dauntless. The slaughter is sickening, but they do not fear or faint. Retreating and advancing alternately, the Federals THE BOY IN BLUE. 161 fighting for their flag, and the Rebel soldiery for pillage, stopping now and then to empty the pockets of the wounded, or bear off the garments of the dead, the day wanes. General Pillow writes a dispatch for Nashville : " On the honor of a soldier, the day is ours." On the honor of a rebel soldier ! They should have known by the name, that it was untrue. Flushed with a promise of victory they cease to be cautious. Shell and scharpenelle, grape and cannister mow down the enemy. They are disheartened they cannot be rallied. General Wallace tells his men they may, if they choose, storm the breast-works, and they do choose. Fir- ing and falling, firing and falling, they approach the enclosure. Cheering and fighting, they drive the enemy back, and stand in their morning tracks. Colonel Birges and his men are distributed where they can deal death at their will. The lowering sun throws his beams into the enemies' faces, blinding them, but giving out-look to our advancing columns. Kingold has grown feverish with the night's remem- brance, and wearied with the day's toil, among the crushed and writhing victims in the hospitals, and now with a rebel cloak and cap left in an abandoned trunk at Fort Henry, and worn at Colonel Birges' request, he stands beside this renowned rifleman. The foe, if they 14* 1 G2 THE BOY IN BL UE. saw him at all, think him a confederate prisoner of rank, and turn their aim away. Shot after shot sped from the slim steel instrument, and Ringold panted at every whir of a bullet as is if it had been aimed at himself. Once when a gallant confederate officer was cheering his men, in front of our field muskets, Colonel Dirges sighted him, and his finger rested a moment for a surer aim, when the quick hand of Ringold turned the rifle, and the bullet whizzed into space. Colonel Birges was not a man to accept such an interference with patience. Had it been one of his own men, the nexf; ball would have let his life out, but his sharp questioning eyes met such a look in the young face, such an appeal, not for mercy to himself, but to the rebel, that the anger died out of the hard man's eyes, and he said with a softer tone than one often hears on the battle field : " What was it, my boy ?" " That man was once my my pardon me, Colonel, I cannot speak it, his name is Carry 1 Farnam." " Never mind. If he was your friend once, he isn't now, but I'll spare him though my men will take him off that horse if they can. I respect your remembrance of friendship. Thank God I have nobody among the horde, or it would go hard to aim at a man I had liked once. You look too white to stay here any longer. Go to headquarters, and I'll see you by and bye, if I don't TEE BOY IN BL UK 1 63 get my orders to go up yonder with any of the other poor fellows." Ringold was not superstitious, at least not more so than all imaginative people are, but he remembered in this brief moment, Apel's Gespensturbuch, and fancied Colonel Birses' a Freischutz. Of the seventh ball in the O rifle, he might have spared himself anxiety. The Evil Spirit would not have taken this arch rebel, Carryl Farnam, because his stay upon the earth prospered the plans of the wicked. Lauman's brigade approaches the enemy's works. Stern was every face, and steady every hand. Their fierce energy is suppressed, but their tread is onward. Shot nor shell disturbs a man that is untouched. Not a look goes back to the fallen then. General Smith with his head bared to the sunset, and his cap on the point of his sword, cheers the soldiery, and their hearts throb a reply to every sound of his voice. Like an avalanche they move onward, then melt into a leaping torrent and surge over the field, fighting with bayonets fixed, and the memory of fallen brothers in that day's fray, maddening them to deeds of horror. They leap upon the crested hill and wave their triumph- ant banner in defiance over their retreating enemies. They laugh, cry, shout and sing. They know noth- ing but victory, victory ! That night, sleep was a blessed angel. Many a heart would have wailed over earthly losses, but for this balm 1 64 THE BOY IN BL UK to the bereaved. It held their eyes from seeming to see the morrow. The snow was their bed, and the trenches of the enemy their shelter, but they were rested with success, and the morning found them hungry, but ready and eager to complete the capture. The roaring of the enemy's immense guns had not wakened them. Balls had sped through the darkness, and silence of the night, and many of our glorious fellows found themselves in another world when they opened their soul's eyes in the morning. The bugle blast was the only sound that could pene- trate the wearied enclosures of their sleeping selves. Through the dimness of that early day, upon the foe's battlements there fluttered a white pennant of parley that prophet of defeat. Over the embankment, and down the slope it quivered, flapping the frosty air with its pallid interpretations. A messenger to General Grant was protected by its white wing. An officer hastened with the letter to his commander. It asked for a suspension of hostilities till midday, and an appointment of commissioners to agree upon terms of capitulation. This was the moment of rechristening, to the intrepid Grant. " No terms other than immediate, and unconditional surrender. I propose to move upon your works imme- diately." TEE BOY IN BL HE. \ 65 This was the chronicled reply of the man whose ini- tials came to remind us of his heroism on that bitter cold morning. General Buckner questioned Grant's chivalry, but yielded. This rebel, was a man of contradictory characteristics. He would not desert his followers, when that dastardly thief Floyd, and Pillow, his petty companion in cow- ardice, sneaked off from his vanquished forces to the safety of a steamer, bearing away curses from thou- sands of terrified men behind them. No, General Buck- ner was not bad enough for that, but his history reveals something, that forces one to wonder why he should have accused his conqueror of a lack of generosity. With the coming of the sun, the frost went away, and the warmth came back to the numb limbs of the sol- diery, and to the throats of the wild birds. They chanted their Sabbath hymns in the tree tops, and our army syllabled a response, when they saw the white pennant had gone back and planted itself upon the breastworks of Donnelson. The music of all the instruments in that vast collection, played orchestral accompaniments to this Sabbath song of victory, this musical lyric of Liberty. Every banner fluttered in the breeze. Every bayonet glittered in the sunshine, every foot-fall was firm, and every motion was a manifestation of pride. From the Cumberland's silver current, and from the Tennesseean hills, column after column of exultant sol- 1 66 THE BO Y IN L UE, diery poured into the Fort. Sailors, defeated two days ago, swept in from the battered boats, and infantry, driven back but yesterday, advanced, and mingled their voices in one vast swell of triumph. Columbiads without ball, and artillery without shot, swelled the chorus of success, and hailed the entry of the dear old Flag to its own home. The wretched forgot their misery, the mangled forgot their pain, the hungry forgot their longing for food nothing was remembered but success. Deep and bitter were the rebel curses sent after their chieftain deserters. Threats of future vengeance was upon many a lip, and deeper yet in many a haggard face. Ringold had not left the side of the cot upon which Colonel Trissilian lay all that night with a shat- tered limb. The surgeon had arranged the splintered bones, and Ringold soothed the impatient sufferer dur- ing the long, long hours. Food touched by his deft hands seemed to possess a wonderful relish, and the stroke of the Exile's fingers over the rumpled curls of the colonel's aching head brought ease, and pleasant dreams of peace. The Sabbath had come, and the white flag had flut- tered, and the wild cheers had surged through the still- ness of the beautiful dawn, but the invalid felt like a chained man. It is heroic to brave a battle, but it is God like to wait in patience. Colonel Trissilian was not God-like. He would have swung his bandaged THE BOY IN BLUE. 167 ]imb over his saddle, and swelled the moving mass that pressed within that vast area of breastworks, that two miles of wall, and mounted the embrasures through which death had been meeted out to hundreds of Patriots, and worse than death, to many more. How bravely that man had fought, how wordless was his suffering, but to lie quietly in the distance, while the men who he had led undaunted to the charge, were filing forth to meet their reward, was too much ! The day grew to high noon, and still the pale patient Boy in Blue, sat by his side, or brought messages of the march, as he could see it from the nearest look-out. The sun began to descend toward the hills. The colonel caught a clear look into Ringold's eyes, and what he saw there, he did not shape in words, but his restless tongue was still, and his voice fell to a tone of submission. " Wont you rest a little, Ringold, you look so worn ? I've been a brute, of course I have. I know how to be one better than any one in this army. Please lie down and sleep, I don't need any care. That budget of black, hasn't stirred from his posture for twelve hours, poor negro ! Rouse him if you can, and drop off, just to please me, and I'll be as docile as a poked pig when you come back." " I'd rather go over and see If there are any Tennes- see boys who are penitent, or need any thing I can furnish them, if you wont miss me too much." 1 68 ' THE EOT IN BL UE. So Jetty was punched, and screamed at, and rumpled, till the white of his eyes dawned over his face, and he roused himself to breakfast and duty. Ringold had been cook, and nurse, but was willing to alternate now. Victory, with a beseeching whinny, called to his mas- ter, as if to be grateful that there was food for him, at last. He seemed to feel the indignity of rough sides, and the want of personal cleanliness, but there was no time for the luxuries. A stroke of affection was given, and then a gallop over the furrowed abatis, into the very heart of the intrenchments of Fort Donnelson. It was a pitiful sight. Weaned, hungry men, disappointed, but stern, facing a fate from which they would not turn, disarmed, sub- jugated in spirit, more by the disgraceful conduct of their leaders, than by their own defeat, lay sullenly in the sun. Few were the questions Ringold asked, and fewer were the answers. Not a face that he ever saw before looked into his. A dark glazed pair of eyes were turn- ed to the sky from a trunkless head lying in a pool of blood. Across the cheek there was a broad line of pur- pie a birth-mark upon a Chickamauga lad. Ringold remembered it, and knew that it belonged to an officer of lower rank, but to a high family. What an end to treason ! THE BOY IN BLUE. 169 He was in time to see the officers deliver their arms to the Federal authorities, a demand not often made, but assassination already perpetrated, made it a neces- sity. It was the first pleasurable sensation this conflict had produced in the heart 'of Ringold. He felt that he was getting hard. He was pleased at this evidence of his fitness for military life. To be glad at even the dis- comfiture of an enemy, was significant. It seemed a proof that he was not dulled to everything. Even these enemies had sometimes been guests at his old home, and broken bread under the pleasant roof-tree that had faded in cannon smoke, or drifted away in the distance of time and change. His thoughts were winged, and his native hills and valleys were before his gaze. He saw the old times, with its kindliness of speech, and felt the genial grasp of warm hands. These were hospitali- ties that meant to be expressions of human love, and promises of perpetual regard. Then his thoughts came back to the disarmed, humiliated men, whose faces wore the handwriting of base passions. May-be this -terrible lettering will be worn away when better days have gone over them. Pray God all ye Christian women who wait, while manhood works, Pray ! Ringold bent his head, and his lips moved, but he spoke nothing. The spirit of Love and Peace heard him, and will answer in Heaven's good time. He had seen enough. He turned down by the river 15 1 70 THE BOY IN BL UK and followed the paths of the enfilading balls from the gun boats which had cut away the batteries, and the stones were red with blood. Pools of red had sunken in the indentations of fleeing feet, and purpled in that Sabbath's sun. Victory within Fort Donnelson, thank God ! He rode back by the grave of Ruyter, and there was no foot-print on the fresh earth. Angels had turned the turmoil away from this sacred resting-place. He was soothed with this belief, and when his blank- et, wrapped closer by the loving but clumsy hands of Jetty, was about him, he dreamed of green hills where there were no crimson spots, and the New England lawn, and the surf, and the dear father, tender and man- ly as he remembered him in the long ago. Then the day came with its wretched pictures to drown the fancies of the night. Bandages for the bruised slipped through the cunning fingers of Ringold, and the surgeons said he was made to be the wounded man's friend and helper. Tender of touch, and light but firm of tread, he went from the man whose hands were hewn away and needed food, or a pen's service, to where feet were swept off by the rush of a ball, and required comfort that could not be reached. Then a soft word was wanted when the pain was too hard to bear alone, and Ringold's sympathy soothed the men to endurance. Sometimes the nights were spent THE EOT IN BL HE. 171 without sleep, and sometimes the days too, without rest, but the boy never dropped a moan, or a sigh. Trissilian only lent him to other patients. He kept him closest to himself, 172 THE Y AV J1L UK CHAPTER X. AFTER THE STORM. " It is not the wind That is lifting it now ; and it is not the wind That moulded this vision.'' "While he thus spoke, a doubtful tumultuous joy Chased its fleeting effects o'er the face of the boy, As when some stormy moon, in a long cloud confined. Struggles outward through shadows, the varying wind Alternates, and bursts self-surprised from her prison, So that slow joy grew clear in his face." THE days followed in their slow course, and they were back in Cairo. The colonel was impatient, as almost all thoroughly healthy men are, when accident lays them aside. Sometimes he was patient and tender, and sometimes he was imperious and unreason- able, but either mood was the same to his faithful friend. Jetty was goodness itself, though he did sometimes feel insulted, and show indignation in the white corners of his eyes, when he was petulantly addressed as " you unmitigated nigger." To be sure, he didn't mind "nigger," but "unmiti- gated," was a big word, and he fancied it meant some- thing very bad. One evening, when the hot copper sun had gone from THE BOY IN BL UE. 1 73 the sky, and his saffron robe had trailed close to the edge of the horizon, and there was but the glimmer of a yellow twilight left about Colonel Trissilian and Ringold, a mood of rare confidence came upon the convalescent as it sometimes comes to us all, through the day's dying. He showed Ringold the relics of his infancy, which had never been separated from him. A pretty shoe, once, but worn and old now with the touches of unan- swered and mysterious affection, and one thing more, and only one, that was spared to him by the pitiless wreck upon the bleak New Jersey shore. This was a pale golden-tinted translucent cross of Cairngorm. The colonel told his pitiful story of orphanage and suffering, and when he waited for an expression of sympathy, there was only utter silence. He waited till surprise and disappointment changed to a feeling of anxiety. He used his crutch now, and he rose and ap- proached his listener, and, with unusual familiarity, laid his hand upon Ringold's shoulder. It quivered with a strong muscular contraction a moment under his touch, and the next, the Boy in Blue lay upon the hospital floor. No surgeon was near, nor was any needed. Life came back speedily. A quick current of air, a glass of wine, and it was over. The surgeon returning in time to hear the excited statement of Colonel Trissilian, only answered : " Too 15* 1 74 THE BOY IN BL UE. little out-door life too much anxiety about something, and a sudden relaxation of the mind, it may be. What were you saying, colonel ?" " O, nothing to him ! Nothing to him, I assure you. You are mistaken in your theory." " Never mind," said the centre of this small excite- ment. " I was only faint a little. It is over now, and I beg you will not give it another thought. The col- onel was relating an exciting story, and the room was warm." Colonel Trissilian was never pained by Ringold's want of sympathy again. Every word he uttered, every plan he meditated, brimmed the eyes of Ringold with a flood of interest. The lad assumed a sort of affectionate authority over his superior from that night, which was charming to Trissilian. It was unlike any petting he had ever had. From being a haughty, fascinating boy, Ringold changed to a loving child. This convalescence held the sweetest time of Trissil- ian's life. There was an element in the nature of Ringold that just met the wants and tastes of his officer. His very soul responded to the voice of his new friend, as it changed and softened while they drifted through the first month of spring. Day after day Ringold rode up and down the city, visited all the military posts, made inquiries in a cau- tious way for Abernethy St. Remy, but he could get no TEE BOY IN BLUE. 175 tidings. Either he was in the service under an assumed name, or he had joined the commandant of some other post. This at times, with his anxiety about home, brought the cloud back, and it seemed almost impene- trable. So his life vibrated. General Grant had been appointed commander of the new military division, known as West Tennessee. He was a major-general now. He had pushed up the Cum- berland, and possessed the towns and store-houses on the coast. Fort Henry was his head-quarters, and from this shore he penetrated southward to the borders of the State of Mississippi. Colonel Trissiliari joined his regiment at Pittsburg Landing, though under protest from his surgeon. He could not linger when the bugle call sounded, and in- timated another triumph. Had it been a summons to death, or defeat, he would have been just as eager. He wished to know what fate had for him, and for his country. Before starting, the colonel tucked a pair of side-arms, small and beautiful, into Ringold's belt. In vain had the colonel urged their necessity before, and was sur- prised at the unexplained change in the boy's manner. He knew it was because Ringold was upon his own soil almost at home that caused him to lay aside the loathed weapons which had served him so worthily far- ther away from the " Dearest spot." Now the boy had some one to love and defend, 176 THE BOY IN BLUE. against even a Tennesseean. Since that night when the little shoe was shown him so like one he remember- ed oh so like ! he had no aversion to the means of self- preservation. It had been after many a remonstrance from Ringold that the colonel assumed the fighting, and laid aside the invalid's role. These last days were so pleasant to remember. Trissilian did not, while Ringold did know, why. THE BOY IN BL US. 1 77 CHAPTER XI. WITH THE ENEMY. "Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer, The message ot deliverance came, But heralded by roll of drums On waves of battle-troubled air. " Not as we hoped ; but what are we ? Above our broken dreams and plans, God lays, with wiser hands than man's, The comer stones of Liberty." MAN has sometimes his bitterest foe in himself. Rebellion had more enemies in her heart after the last disaster to her arms, than she lost men by the Federal capture, but they dare not discover their hate. Mercy, grace, and pardon were forgotten virtues. The tropical growth of wrong choked every struggling element of right. Bloodless martyrs fell every day into waiting graves because there was no hope. If jus- tice was ever to reign again, and the peaceful days ever to come back, they were too far off, and the gulf of misery too deep between. Since the fall of Fort Don- nelson the line of defeat had not found a termination for the rebels. , ' 1 78 THE BO Y IN BL UE, An army of sixty thousand men, after being joined by General Crittenden's from Mumfreesboro, were six weary weeks in reaching Corinth, from Bowling Green and other places of confederate concentration. Week after week, through the mud, unsheltered at night, and half fed by day, lying down wherever the darkness found them, in plowed fields, in dripping rain, or under the pitiless stars, it is no wonder if they forgot everything but their pressing wants, and desolated their pathway like famished locusts. Two thousand wagons cut the earth into ridges, like the path of a ball, and the spring rains filled their tracks with mire. For oh, so long ! the incessant tramp kept on, and fever felled the men as a woodman fells a forest. Sick men filled the villages on the route. Some strayed out of the ranks in delirium, and lay down to die alone. Rest was all in all, to some, and they risked being cap- tured as deserters, just for one long sleep in some shel- tered spot. They were mostly ignorant men who filled the ranks, and they reasoned that the planters made the war and they must suffer some of its penalties. So the fine blooded animals that were the pride of their possessors, and won stakes at the small races, served to bear away tired soldiers. Ladies' saddle ponies, farm drudges, carriage beauties, all went on ill this three hundred miles of march. Desperate men were among them. Duplicity, theft THE LO r IN BL UK 1 79 and desertion, had been taught them by Floyd, and in a smaller way, by many others. Every treasure was swept out of their path. Nothing but desolation was left. Military despotism ruled. Acts of private injustice were unheeded and unpunished, but an utterance of affection for the old ways of peace, was rewarded by death, and so the men were silent, taking vengeance and comfort whenever it came in their way. At last they reached Corinth, but Grant was at Pitts- burg Landing ! How they dreaded his approach. Their officers cheered them, but they remembered their de- sertion in the last encounter. Beauregard, however, was with them now, and he was their pet and idol, arid Johnson was no coward. He would stand or fall by them, and they tried to take heart. The flotilla of the federals was empty in the river while the soldiery was encamped, and preparing for battle only twenty miles away. Their generals, after a midnight consultation, resolved this time to be the attacking party. Generals Price and Van Dorn were to join them with thirty thousand troops, and then they would swallow their enemies, and regain their lost prestige. All Friday night, with five days' rations, these mistaken men crept toward the federal lines, making only eight miles in the dark hours. Within three miles of the unsuspecting army, all 1 SO THE BO Y IN BL UE. Saturday, was spent arranging for a combined attack on the Sabbath. The drums of the Unionists, reached the enemy's camp with their careless music. Double guards were stationed in front, whose zeal in the Southern cause was unmistakable, for fear some Union-loving conscript would escape to the shelter of the Stripes and Stars. Some had already gone with the fall of Fort Donnelson, and these voluntary losses to their numbers were so much harder to contemplate than a reduction of num- bers by shot and shell. Little rest did they get this last night before the butchery. On the cold wet ground, with nothing above them, and only the promise from Beauregard that they should sleep in the enemy's camp on Sunday night, comforted them. This might have been interpreted to some of their sad fancies, as it really happened, and their last night's upward gaze at the stars, an appeal for mercy and ac- ceptance. Tender thoughts of the beloved, wherever they waited, were sent wandering home, and childhood memories softened the hearts of men who were hard from wrong received, and not from wickedness willingly committed. Many a good bye was silently sent where the next bulletin would carry heartbreak. God pity the waiting ! Perhaps a little sleep, perhaps only a wretched aching THE BO Y IN BL UE. \ 8 1 of the tired bones, and at three o'clock, without a bugle call, every man was under arms, and the unwarned Union soldiery were falling like dead leaves in an early autumn wind, before the Sabbath sun looked into their eyes. It would be the old pitiful story to go over this battle. The surprise, and the rapidity with which the unpre- pared federals recovered their self-possession, are matters of history. The early report of musketry did not startle the half- dreaming men in the morning. The drum-beat had not sent out its call, nor the bugle given its warning. Be- sides, this rattle and din was supposed to be the target practice of returning pickets, who emptied their rifles at some imaginary enemy, and then shouted their fan- cied triumph, and so the Unionists dreamed on. But the wild cries of " The Rebels ! The Rebels !" roused them to the speedy grasp of musket, and the hasty rushing to battle in the fixed ranks of their several commanders. Colonel Trissilian forgot his recent suffering, and with \ that promptness which came as if by inheritance, was ready. General Wallace named him " Toujours pret" and this christening under the fleecy sky, amid the odors of early blossoms, and the matins of the birds, was a fitting one, and it lasted through his military career. Ringold plead hard to ride by his side this day, and 16 1 82 THE SOY IN BL UE. Trissilian tried in vain to say a positive negative, but concluded his resistance by hastily girding a short sword which he had taken from a rebel at Fort Donnel- son, about the slight waist of his aid, and giving him a short convulsive grip of the hand that quivered through the nerves of the young soldier, said : " You have changed your mind. You could not fire at a Tennesseean two months ago. Will you- to-day? Beg pardon, you don't look as if you could. I wish you would not go. I know you do not lack heroism, but you havn't told me all you will, some time. I beseech you to stay in the rear." " Perhaps I'll drop a Tennesseean or two to-day. My practice with Birges has not made me less capable of service, and I certainly shall go with you, only I should like to know at whom I aim. There ! that buckle is right. Here's Victory. I'll defend him and you, against any one. We are in the advance." Both rode off to the gathering regiment. A shout greeted their Colonel. They had not seen him since his fall, and welcomed him enthusiastically. Ringold saw him draw the back of his hand across his eyes. No one else noticed the mo- tion, or if they did, fancied it was caused by the strong light of that morning, touching his eyes. Brigadier General W. H. L. Wallace's division, to which he was attached, did not get the message announ- cing an attack until several hours after the battle had commenced. THE BOY IN BL UE. \ 33 They were near Pittsburg landing, two miles from the point where General Hardee entered his column, and were in better shape to meet the unexpected order to march, than if it had come as it did to General Sher- man or Prentiss. Wallace's men were used to the shriek of shell, and the faces of mangled men, and they did not flinch, though it may be every man felt a quiver, as possibili- ties would find a second of attention, even in this hurry of forming, and the double quick, over the rough way. Ravines, morasses, abrupt ascents, and as abrupt de- clivities, scarce hindered them. Hardly twenty rods detour was made in that march. Ready and willing the scream of shells, the whir of balls and the fts ! fts ! of bullets, was music to them, in their increased excitement. For five hours Colonel Trissilian's cool, clear head, and rapid action, with now and then a merry word, kept the position assigned him by the brave Wallace. Twice, an almost superhuman strength was exhausted upon this division frum the united forces of Hardee, Bragg, and Cheatham, but General Wallace held his ground, and repulsed the enemy. The thribble col- umns often parted with the fallen men, and then closed quick and firm. Wallace kept them up to his own will and courage, by his superior personal influence. Twice, during the day he passed Trissilian, and his salutation of approval 1 84 THE BOY IN BL UK added to his "Toujours pret" fired the young officer's heart anew with enthusiasm. Once the General stopped to ask who the young lad was, who carried the last or- der, and bore no distinctive mark of rank. " Only a volunteer for the day, and my friend," Tris- silian replied, lifting his cap. " He has the courage that would make one of the old ' Six Hundred.' Tell him to come to me, when the fight is over." Valkyria called another hero to the brave man's feast in Valhalla, that day and when the fallen General was borne tenderly to the rear, his division followed him ! In vain Trissilian called, and cheered his regiment, and they halted, and faltered as if they would, but could not remain. Their courage, endurance and enthusiasm was gone with their leader, but Trissilian would not leave the face of the foe, and was near, when General Prentiss was surrounded. He fought till there was not a ball left in his side-arms, and his sabre had been struck from his grasp five min- utes before. Ringold was by his side, and Victory was plunging his feet into the enemy's front. The rebels curled around these two daring fellows, and were striking towards Trissilian's shoulder. A quick look backward, and a swift motion of the left spur, and then a sword thrust at the nearest arm of an attack- ing rebel, and he, too, was doomed. Another blow TEE BOY IN BL UE. \ 85 cleft the cheek of an officer, and then the sword-blade was hurled high in air, but the hilt was left in the small firm hand of Ringold. A second, and the light silver mounted revolvers were flashing their winged messen- gers of death deliberately into the faces of the ene- my. Trissilian was fighting because they were rebels, and Ringold was protecting his friend. Neither thought of capture, but the crowd closed in. Their balls were spent, both blades were gone, and they were prisoners. Trissilian's horse, a noble creature captured at Fort Henry, had carried. him grandly till now, but he shud- dered, swayed, and only the rider's perfect conscious- ness of every surrounding motion, saved him from be- ing rolled under the huge creature. He dismounted, and there was nothing left, arms useless, sword gone, horse dying, his division, cowards at the last, and the General dead ! Ringold leaped from his saddle, and offered the rein to his colonel, but he would not take it. So fierce a contest, so heroic an officer, and so devot- ed a defender, won a cheer, from the appreciative rebels. Not a hand was lifted, but the crowd and their bayonets closed in, and that was all. Prentiss and his men, with a few hardy fellows of Wallace's command, were hur- ried off amid exultant shouts of triumph. Trissilian was so changed ! A positive sense of sup- pressed power made him walk like a captive king 16* 186 THE BOY IN BL UK His eyes were flooded with a look that his guard did not willingly meet. Quick, scrutinizing, and penetra- tive always, an inflexibility like welded iron seemed to have grown into his lips, brows and figure. There was but one symtom of fear, and that was to face Ringold. The Aid was his superior in patience, and submission, when resistance was useless. " Don't kick against the pricks, Colonel. I am glad we are here together. If I had missed you, I should have penetrated the lines, and surrendered myself." " Would you, Ringold ? I cannot quite believe you. Say it again, so that I can pardon myself for letting you come to-day." Ringold repeated it. " Ye'd a been a dead man three times over if the lad hadn't a turned the blows betwixt ye's and purgatory, shure. How the divil o' fight leaped out'en his eyes, be gorry, when the blows fell, and the bum, bum, bum, o' that bit uv a pistol fetched a man every time, by St. Michael. Some saint guarded ye, for sartain, and ye bees Yankees." This Irish corporal was enthusiastic. He had never seen any thing half so fine in fighting, before, and he had been in too many contests, for his soul's peace. He vowed to himself that if the prisoners were under his care " a precious little watching would they get, sure." The Virgin's prayers spared them, he believed, and no THE SOT IN BLUE. 1 87 earthly interference with special spiritual protection was right. The prisoners were dejected, after a while. They were almost certain our army was defeated. Willingly, aye, gladly would they give a score of lives if they pos- sessed them, to secure victory. Then they heard the wild cries of success, as they were hurried on toward Corinth. By and bye they heard a different crash through the air, and turning back there were white wreaths curling up to the sky from the river. The sound was music, and the smoke, incense. The gun-boats were pouring death up the ravine ! The prisoners comprehended. They shout and toss up their caps, in hope of ultimate success, but the prick of bayonets held their enthusiasm in check. Till deep night they marched, and the rain came down cold and continuous, beating the drops into their faces. The prisoners had no joy of positive success throbbing through their veins, to keep their suffering at bay. They were getting farther from the music of the shells, but they uttered no complaint, nor faltered. The Colonel and Ringold were separated from the Prentiss prisoners, by special order. A communion of disaster, is not like a sympathy of success, and the sep- aration brought no pain. Jetty had been left on one of the steamers, And this comforted Ringold. His ser- vices were needed there, and before the news of the attack reached over the ravine to General Wallace, the 1 88 THE BOY IN BL HE. negro had been sent off to remain till wanted. It would save the tender heart some agony but the future ! The next day dawned at length, dreary, and filled with the wails of the wounded, and the moaning of the dying. Hospitals had been improvised on the road to Corinth, and by one of these, the two halted. No food was offered, nor did they desire it. They were permit- ted shelter, but no sleep came. The weak limb of Colonel Trissilian grew painful, but the surgeons were human. They bandaged it, and directed a delay. All Monday they sat amid the dying, and listened to the curses of men maddened with agony, and eager to be avenged upon either their leaders, or the Federals. Ignorant wretches, dying when the world would be better without them, and life held no more happiness for their mangled bodies. In the distance the trees seemed covered at times with a pall of flame, and between the moans and the shrieks, brief pauses the continuous thunder of artillery peal- ed on. Their wretched fancies saw streams of blood flowing down the gorges, and a procession of souls en- tering the Gate-ways of the mysterious Hereafter. Waiting became more terrible than the fray. Toward noon an officer was led into the hospital. Trissilian and Ringold both shuddered. His splendid figure was fixed in their memories forever. Just missing his head while aiming at his temple, Rin- THE BO T IN L UK 1 89 gold's last ball was spent. A motion of the magnificent war-horse upon which the rebel sat, let the charge pass in front of his eyes. The revolver was within an inch's distance of his face. They thought him wounded at the time, for his hand went quickly to his brow, but they saw nothing more in the rush of contestants, and the blaze of incessant musketry. Worn and sad, he looked, and such a world of suppressed agony was manifest in his expression. Rin- gold's head dropped upon his open palm and he reeled, but the quick strong arm of the colonel saved him. They comprehended this fearful visitation to a traitor, but oh the hand that dealt the vengeance, would it ever be clean again ? Ringold lifted his head and gazed at his small taper fingers. They were browned by exposure, and slightly muscular with use. He turned them over ; there was no stain upon them. He peered closer, with an anx- ious endeavor to be certain there was no blood. " Nothing there. 'Tis as pure as your soul, Ringold. Let me touch it. It is a dear hand, and saved the life of one, who if he is poor in words, has no poverty of feel- ing. The deed made this little brave hand holy " and the colonel bent over it, and left a kiss in the palm. The hand closed, and the first tears gathered, big and clear, and lay like diamonds upon dusky velvet. Then a smile came. Just as you have seen the level evening 1 90 THE BO Y IN EL UK sun lay over the bronze-green of twilight woods, so this gleam lit the face of The Boy in Blue. The wounded were oblivious of the scene, and the prisoners, and the surgeons, too busy with their moan- ing men, and with this one new blinded patient. Only a look with their skillful eyes revealed the terrible truth. No more light from heaven would fall upon this man's days. May angels lead him into the better beams that fall upon pure spirits, waiting for perpetual day ! His name was Hobart Ringold. Was he anything to the boy who doomed him to perpetual darkness ? They did not look as if the same blood leaped, or cur- dld in their veins, and yet ! Aurora Farnam prayed that this man might never look upon her face again ! She did not pray for just this. He remembered, but even the bitterness of his re- pentance had not turned away the curse. Just outside the tent stood the horse that saved his master's life, neighing for the sound of his voice, or the touch of his hand. He would never be guided by that strong will again. Another had led him from the front, when the hot breath of cannon still seethed the weary gunners, and swayed the fate of our Nation. Hobart Ringold had longed to drown his thoughts of home in the din, but he could not now, because Fate bade him think think only think, forever. TEE BOY IN BL UE. 191 The splendid animal he had so loved, because it be- longed to the dear past, was led up and down where the sound of his hoofs could come in through the doorway. Nothing but this dumb creature of all that had filled his greedy soul so full of happiness, in the old times ! He had christened the handsome beast, Glory, in that forsaken home, and sometimes he said to himself after calling the name : " But I am only Ichabod now. It signifies all there is of Hobart Ringold !" It was a touching sight to look at the two, man and horse, and tears rained from eyes that would scorn to weep for themselves. Death might have been merciful, but it would not. Fate had no tenderness for him. The day waned. Other prisoners came up. Rebel success flowed yesterday, but was ebbing to-day. After mid-day, tidings of losses came ; then orders to move the wounded to Corinth. The swollen limb of Trissilian was forced to further service, and the sinking sun left them far out from their destination. Human agony rolled by in dashing ambulances, every motion of which was worse than death. The dead were thrown out as soon as their tortured bodies gave up their spirits. It was a procession of unutterable distress. No words could picture it. 192 THE BOY IN BLUE. Hardened men sickened, and fainted at the sight, and ears were so maddened by the cries, that their soula never again asserted supremacy. Rain fell, and fevered lips thanked God for this refreshing. Then sleet, icy and driving, chilled them to their very marrow. Open wagons, with not a blanket even to shelter the suffering occupants, carried the bruised and broken men. After- wards, as if the vengeance of the heavens was not fully wreaked upon these breakers of God's images, hail fell, big and pitiless. Two inches of these glistening bullets lay over the earth. Trissilian and Ringold did not suffer. They could feel nothing but the glory of their flag, and the triumph of their arms. The bandaged foot did uncomplaining service, and the daylight found them at Corinth. Through the morning's confusion, and the waiting and watching of the guards for the strange sights, the quiet ways of the prisoners, were scarcely noticed. Hard bread and water for breakfast was very sweet. They could rejoice in their dripping garments as if they had but now been lifted up from a baptism of great joy. Presently a sight thrilled Ringold. Beauregard dashed by them upon Victory. Superbly he carried the Bonaparte of the Confederacy. His lips foamed, and his ears and nostrils indicated a wicked spirit of vanity. Perhaps the evil was contagious. Not a word from the two, indicated special interest in the arrival. Beau- THE BOY IN BL HE. 1 93 regard was sufficiently marvelous to excuse all the eager looks of Colonel Trissilian and Ringold. Upon the floor of the room where they were standing lay men, heaped and ready for burial. Clothing was sometimes partially stripped from them, to cover the chilled bones of the fever wasted, who were waiting to go. Soldiers were fitting themselves to garments, and self wag the absorbing thought. Everything was confusion. Chaos was reigning. The retreat was hardly begun, though it had been all night throbbing over the icy miles. Amidst the din, a poor black fellow, attenuated by hunger, and tattered by time and poverty, crept cau- tiously up to Colonel Trissilian, arid whispered a ques- tion, upon whose answer the negro seemed to be reposing his future expectations. " If you please, sah, Mista Captain Yankee, will ye tell a culled pusson when Mista Mont is to be lected ? Mista Mont, de man who has promised to make us cullud people, into white Yankees, so dat we calls him Freemont, if you please, sah ?" " Mr. Lincoln will not wait, my poor fellow, for Mr. Mont's election. You will be free very soon, and bet- ter, perhaps, for your color. Keep up your courage, and remember, Mr. Lincoln will give you liberty, and you may depend upon a change of color, when Fremont is President." How the white teeth glittered, and even Trissilian 17 1 94 THE BOY IN BL UK found he had a voice with which he could still laugh. Hobart Ririgold had gone to a lodging house of com- parative quiet, and his sergeant was now begging a waiter, for a surgeon to go to his officer. Glory was pawing the earth by the door, with the rein lying loosely over a post. An inspiration seized the prisoners. They had looked strategy at each other in the silence during a trial of gar- ments belonging to the fallen rebels. They had seemed to their guard, who was waiting orders, only pleasant " Yanks," and if it amused them to masquerade in rebel uniforms, why, said he : " Split me, if I'll hinder a bit of fun. Its little they'll get anyhow. If I wasn't on duty, I'd shut my eyes till the pleasant spakein gintlernen were safe wid their own, so I wud, be gorry, or me Christian name's not Michael." Victory was held lightly by a servant, and the poor creature looked sadly dispirited, and drooping, when at rest. Amid the troops outside, with their jaded beasts, and the hurried interchange of wonderful experiences, Colonel Trissilian and Ringold stood in dry grey coats, after carefully hanging their own, where the guard was to understand they were to dry, and then be assumed. A low whistle was sent from Ringold. Nobody ob- served. Victory pricked up his ears, and turned his handsome head. Presently another low whistle. The TEE BO T IN BL UK 195 mounted attendant of Beauregard, used the rein care- lessly. Another whistle, and the animal sprang away from the grasp that kept him so insecurely, and fol- lowed the sound. Not so hurriedly did he plunge as to disturb the worn and dispirited soldiery, and there was no haste to recover him. Leisurely, followed the rebel sergeant. Colonel Trissilian now parted the crowd like a wedge, mounted Glory as coolly as if he had been his master, all unnoticed by easy Michael, and a second more elapsed, and Ringold sat in Victory's saddle, and both were darting toward the corning ene- my ! " Dispatches for Breckenridge," Trissilian called out whenever he passed an officer, who he saluted as grace- fully, as if he was no refugee from rebel captivity. When once out in the open country, they made a detour, that sent suspecting bullets after them, but it did not bring them back. They were safe. These hours over a rough country, after their ex- hausting imprisonment, were difficult to endure, but brimmed with the fullness of gratitude, and flooded with the rose light of hope. They took a circle outside the Federal lines, and approaching with a handkerchief waving a truce, the pickets permitted them to advance. Little explanation was needed. Many were escaping from the enemies' lines, and the pursuit of the fleeing foe was too recent, to make their appearance of much interest. 196 THE BOY IN BLUE. Joy was everywhere. The wounded lifted their hands of triumph, and the dying smiled in the face of Death. The sacrifice had not been too great. The storm that had seemed so unmerciful to the retreating, during that terrible night, had been a special God-send to those who lay in the ravines under the trees, or in the old cotton field, gory and rough, with the footprints of war. The dead leaves had caught fire from the incessant blaze of artillery, and was creeping up to the helpless, and only the blessing of the storm quenched these red, lapping tongues of a new enemy. Desolation reigned, but the passions of brutality and hatred were lulled Thank God ! There were days after this fearful episode, before either the limb of Colonel Trissilian, or the nerves of Ringold could get surgical permission to do duty. Good, faithful Jetty had worn his cheeks into black channels by a perpetual weeping of three days and nights, but fortunately they were washed away, after his master's hand had been kissed, and he was sure that it was no ghost come back from the fray. Indeed, that same dingy face, in one half hour, became two shiny ebony hemispheres, dimpled with a continuous grin of recovered happiness. Only one distress lay between the present, and the past, whenever they could put away the memory of the moans, and the still faces, their fixed agony glaring into the sky, or with the old innocent look of boyhood, or THE BOY IN BL UE. 1 97 childhood, making them beautiful in death. This was the remembrance of Hobart Ringold's sightless eyes, and his love for Glory, the noble animal who had helped them to Liberty. There was a private interview with Major General Grant, the evening of their escape, April 8th, and the next day Glory went back to Corinth with the flag of truce, that came begging permission to bury the rebel dead. General Halleck was now coming to take command. Little enthusiasm followed this announcement. The soldiers were satisfied with their present leader, more than that, they loved him with a soldier's love, which is deep and abiding, always. It mattered little. They were becoming so accus- tomed to success. They expected it in whatever en- gagement they should henceforth have. This faith made them powerful. Those. who had once flinched in the face of the foe, were eager to retrieve themselves. They wore a dogged look of longing for an immediate battle, and this was their one wish during their days of re-organization. How cheerfully would they purchase at any peril, their old position ! Colonel Trissilian found his men not demoralized as he feared, but better, for their experience. Their lost leader was embalmed in their memories, and for his sake 17* ] 98 THE BOY IN BL UE. too, they would fight till they won, in the next engage- ment. Nearly a month elapsed before a general movement of the Grand Army took place. Waiting gives time for old wounds of the heart to heal, and the soldiers grew more manly. The scenes of those terrible April days were fainter in memory. The voices of the flying shell, and the fiendish songs they sang, were less vivid. The winging shriek and thud of scharpenelle, with its swift flame, seemed like a wretched dream. One poor fellow, aching, but jolly, was christened, "Shattered," because of his misfortune, and the merry way he met his destiny. " Shattered is my name. Had a bloody baptizing kind o' betwixt Baptist and Piscipal. Fact is, I was killed from one end to tother, but was so pesky spunky, I wouldn't drop for the blasted Rebs, no how, be spilt ef I would. The surgeons touched off a dozen balls out o' me now, but I'm loaded yet. When I git mj new pegs, I'lJ have a crack at the Johnnies. I hain't been to purgatory without coming back with a brimstone in- vitation for the Butternuts, to spend some time in the same climate, smash em ! and I'll be gunpowdered if they don't accept it. I'm goin' to send a through ticket by my double-barreled executor. Ye see I hain't got any legs o' my own, yit the cork ain't growed, and Jeems Hogoboom he ain't got any fists. He'll du the THE BOY IN BL HE. 199 marchin', and lug me in fact he'll be the limber to this machine, and I'll du the bullets. We're goin' to hare a special war order for our case, and bet your life, some- body over the lines '11 pay high for my right ear, left eye, half my nose, under lip, both legs, and all my handsome countenance. I don't mind my scalp so much, for I know'd a gal wot wouldn't have me, 'cause she didn't like the inflammation in my hair. She can't object to me on that account neau, nor any other, as I can see. Mighty likely she'd have me this time, gals is so queer. Shouldn't walk out much by moonlight at present, in fact, not enny. Won't 'Shattered" 1 look sublime on my monument in the buryin' ground ? But the dandelions won't get a chance to posy out over my stomach for a spell, I ken tell ye for I wouldn't die no how till Colonel Grant was President. Jeems is to tote me to lection, and I is to drop in the tickets. Wouldn't I like to have my pegs long enough to dance a hornpipe at Jeff Davis' hanging bee? Jeems will do it yet, and I'll fiddle. We're a hull team, ain't we, Jeems?" " Bet your money, we is. I'll do anything you say. You poke the hoe-cake and bacon into my "hopper, and I'll kiss your Mary Ann for you, every time you say ;" and so the poor fellows laughed over the portion of bone and sinew left to them, and if they felt a deeper wound than nature and the surgeon had cared for, they were brave, and kept it unspoken, because they were heroes unknowing their own grandeur, and asking no recognition. 200 THE BOY IN BLUE. CHAPTER XII. AT CHATTANOOGA. " Hot burns the fire, where wrongs expire ; Then let the selfish lips be dumb. And hushed the breath of sighing ; Before the joys of peace, must come The pains of purifying." THERE were strong eddies setting against liberty everywhere in the South, but by no means harder to be stemmed here, than within many other blackened boun- daries, but the fierce will of mountaineers, always held opinions like bulwarks of bolted steel, and cultivated passionate resistance to any opposition. The spring dawned dismally to every one. Success gratified the northern lovers of liberty, but the tidings were not permitted to penetrate the Confederacy. There was more opposition to the independence of the South than was anticipated by the sanguine, and far less respect shown them from other nationalities, than they supposed. The pressure of a year's contest lessened the comforts of luxurious planters, and embittered them to every resistant of their new policy. TEE Y IN BL UK 20 1 Poverty had become starvation, and moderate wealth, meant absolute want. Mr. St. Remy was suffering intensely from inflam tnatory diseases, and left his bed but little. His wants were more difficult to supply, both by reason of the scarcity of the food he craved, and the caution which the presence of nearly eight thousand cavalry, made necessary. Mrs. Farnam was drifting out from the clinging love of her husband and child, and so they could absent themselves very seldom, to go to the lonely invalid, and could furnish no medicine, except such as their un- skilled judgment might suggest. They were so dis- tressed for their captive, that they looked for the ap- proach of death to the wife and mother, as to a friend, who would lead the weary woman into green fields of perpetual peace, and Mr. St. Remy into liberty and health. They believed they would sometime join her in her rest, and when the last breath fluttered outward, they wept together, but not tears of sorrow. Lonely, they would have been without the low patient voice of the invalid, but there was another call, more pitiful than hers had ever been, so soothed was she by perpetual affection, and so dreary and fettered, was their friend. Strange as it may seem, suspicion had never fallen upon Mr. Farnam. They knew how zealous he had once been, and believed the sustaining presence of hia 202 THE BO Y IN BL HE. son had given him courage to speak. They believed him a weak man, whose will was subjective to an inva- lid wife, so far as her apprehension of his conduct went, and beyond her, the subtle influence of his unconquera- ble daughter, held him inactive. They did not doubt his position. His subsidy was always paid without a complaint, even when the fiercest secessionists some- times groaned over the cost of a confederacy. They did not imagine he was purchasing peace for a dying wife, and safety for his daughter. Deception, seemed no longer base, to any one, and from this, Aurora meas- ured their retrograde movement toward absolute dis- honor. She hated herself for participating in subter- fuge, but then, there was the unmade grave, beyond that, death or Liberty ! Across this one agony, and there should be no retro- cession. One after another of Mr. Farnam's colored people had fled. A feint at recapture never ended in success. They were always comfortably clad, even better than ever, just before they disappeared, and Mr. Farnam's friends added to their expressions of sympathy, the adjective, " ungrateful !" Mr. Farnam said nothing. He bore his losses so serenely, that his acquaintance said affliction was mak- ing him indifferent, even stony. If they had seen the mid- night partings between himself and servants, and the kind wishes, and earnest counsel for, and to them, his THE BOY IN BL UE. 203 neighbors would have been wiser and wickeder. Little groups left at intervals, all through the spring. There were not enough left to cultivate the ground. Vip sus- pected, but dare not utter the truth. His fortunes were growing too rapidly. Carryl Farnam did not come home, to look after Miss St. Remy's house, and notwithstanding Hokey's faithful administration of affairs, " Cairngorm" looked masterless. It wore a be- reaved appearance. The funeral had been several days in the past, and the birds were singing their lyrics of love over the spring mosses, and promising buds, which lifted their green faces to the sunshine, as if they liked their home, that new grave, and the delicate hands of the sad-eyed girl who gave it to them. These were busy days to Aurora, for she had deter- mined to breathe a freer atmosphere, and lay her woman's hand upon the iron wheel which was crushing us all, and with her small might, add to the power of thousands who were tugging at the millstone of tyran- ny, that it might not grind us to powder. Her father was eager to accompany her, though he could not quite decide to enter the Federal ranks against an only son, to whose fate his own hand had led him. One warm moonless night, Hokey's oar dip was muffled with care. He approached the Farnam's, and the house was utterly dark. He did not let the bow of his boat touch the grating sand. He swam, with the 204 THE BO Y IN L TIE. rope in his hand, to the shore, and slowly drew the little shell to land. Middle deep in the water, he lifted his freight, in his great strong arms, and softly approached the entrance. The door stood wide open, and across the hall he strode softly, and up into the chamber from whence the dead had so recently been borne. No light revealed the changes which death leaves, but a voice, so low that the blood trembled coldly through his heart, said : " This way, my good, boy ! This is the bed. Lay Mr. St. Remy down carefully. Good night, Hokey you see how we trust you. God bless your white soul." He was glad to escape. His long limbs were not laggards by the way to " Cairngorm." He could not be certain that Mrs. Farnam's voice had not directed him in that dark chamber. She used to whisper when he carried messages, from his dear old master, with flowers to her bedside, years ago. He could not remem- ber when she spoke aloud. There is a terror of the supernatural, and a profound faith in its existence, in every drop of African blood, and neither reason nor education can press it out. Hokey could not sleep. A slow fever made him a prisoner in his room by morning. Aurora's intuitive soul feared something. She took the key of the locked room, which no servant dared en- ter, because of the pale-faced woman who lay so long within its walls, and went out. Curiosity might gather THE BO T IN SL HE. 205 courage for a swift look within the death-chamber in her absence, and then they were all lost. She found Hokey in a raging delirium. The frightened domestics supposed he had gone mad, and were huddled into the extreme wing of " Cairngorm." This terror, saved the secret. Aurora comprehended her position fully. Her mental and physical forces were always marshaled for use, and to-day they served her nobly. Un- aided, she mastered the muscular man, with that strange power in her eyes and voice. She led him as if he were a little child, while the fever raged like a conflagration about the citadels of life. She walked by the side of the maniac, talking in a low soothing tone, over the long distance to her home. He followed her into Carryl's empty room, so long unused, and her father persuaded him to lie upon the cool soft bed, with the tenderness of a friend. To see this black appealing face upon the fine linen which had been one of the accessories to Carryl's happiness, was wonderful. Whenever the surgeon visited the -patient, Aurora was present, and her spell fell over the sick man. He was quiet, very quiet, and no good was augured from the stillness. If there was any remark upon the un- usual attention paid to Hokey, it led to no endanger- ing speculations, for he was free, and an acknowledged Secessionist. Vip's eyes opened slowly. He saw something, but not clearly. He could not determine whether to ventil- 18 200 THE EO T IN BL UK ate his suspicions, or let them sleep a little longer, and nurse them carefully. He wavered, and the days passed. Mr. St. Remy grew better under tho skillful care of Aurora, and they resolved upon an early attempt at escape. Aurora discovered one difficulty, greater than she knew how to meet. She dared not leave Joe, lest his wretchedness at desertion should crowd out the secret of his mistress' occupation, into dangerous chan- nels. He might burden them if he went, and die if he remained. Her kindly nature decided. Hokey recovered rapidly after his fever passed its crisis. Vip was sent home to enjoy the mastery, during Hokey's illness. He liked the power of place, but not the loss of opportunities to watch the Farnams. Joe was a wanderer up and down the terrace. There were no new patches of spring flowers this May. Here and there the neglected earth was dimpled with daisies, the children of last year's loveliness. Poor Joe gazed down into their pretty eyes with a forlorn expectance of sympathy. Aurora watched his look, and her heart ached for him. It was now the high festival of spring. 'There was no limit to the luxuriance of the last day at Chattanooga. The morning air was shaken with song, and the river laughed in the sun, unmindful of the grief it bordered. Lookout Mountain was grand in green and bronze. Orchard Knob looked regal in emerald velvet and feathery bloom. THE BOY IN BLUE. 207 Missionary Ridge held the glory of a rainbow upon its brow with all but the deeper colors introverted. The Tennessee was never a-tremble with silver spar- kles, nor were its margins clothed and decked with a rich- er garniture. Aurora swept it with her quick eyes, and turned away. Turmoil mocked the quiet, and the future sneered at beauty. This night Home and they, were to drift apart upon the tide of Destiny, and would the sky smile just the same, and the Earth wear its olden glory ? Nature is not sympathetic. Lay your cheek as close as you will to its bosom, it does not throb a response to your caress. When you are weary and useless when you have no longer a pulse with which to ask its sympathy, it lets you lie in its embrace, but another must wrap the enfolding arms. If you love it, and need nothing, it pets you. If you claim its affection when your heart is affluent in glad resources, it responds generously. If you implore its love when you are beggared in your own heart, it is deaf to your pleadings. It mocks you, it is relent- less ! Aurora said this in its beautiful face, when she turned from it at twilight, that last night. St. Remy was wonderfully improved, and very strong in the excitement of coming freedom. Hokey was not fully himself, but they dared not wait for another old inoon. The solace of profound darkness blessed them, 208 THE BOY IX BL UE. and the glittering chains of stars seemed to have been hung higher upon the forehead of that night. They looked so indifferent, and far away ! Scarce the small- est beam touched the \vater when the five fugitives pushed into the tide. Hokey held the oars, and Mr. Farnam sat by the rudder. St. Remy was near the bow, and Joe, bewil- dered, but happy, with his face to the stern, sat in the extreme front. Aurora faced her father, just before him, and felt happy that the blessed hour had come. They pointed their boat toward the south very nearly, intending to go in that direction so long as the current set that way. Scarcely had they drifted a hundred rods from the shore, when they heard other oars, dipping deep and strong, and with no effort to be silent. Hokey pulled stronger. Mr. Farnam laid his hand for a moment upon his daughter's, to see if it trembled. It was as quiet as his own, quieter. At his feet lay a short rifle, and two revolvers with seven lives in each. At the bow were the arms of Mr. St. Remy. Hokey was not strong, nor did he quite be- lieve the boat that followed, was, in any way interested in their movements. Mr. St. Remy took no note of the regular dip, now but a length or two away. Presently a strong pull, and they were but an oar's length off, and just in the wake of the fugitives' little skiff. " Hold on dar, tousand dollar traitor. I'se smelled THE BO T IN BL UK 209 ye dis six months Reckon I'll take de chink dis time. Black or white man gets de pay dis Yankee fotches. Masser Carryl said so. Hold on !" Hokey forgot his weakness when that relentless voice of Vip's broke the silence of that midnight. Long and deep were his oar strokes, but longer and deeper were those that followed, because three strong pairs of arms pulled with a wicked will. Aurora faced them and was the only one in a position of defence. , As cooly as she always acted in an hour of danger, she lifted the rifle, and a moment's steady level- ing at the dim outline close to their stern then a flash a sharp ring over the ripples, and her enfilading aim had sent one or more of their pursuers into the Here- after, where it is hoped they will be judged with mercy. A cry of agony a plash and that was all, till a gut- tural curse, and a return flash, explained that their bit- terest enemy was still alive. Joe fell forward, and was still.. He had not spoken since he left the shore, because Aurora had told him he must be silent, and he had learned the lesson of obe- dience perfectly. He sat in the high seat in the bow, and his head had been the target of Vip's elevated aim. Aurora heard and felt the fall, but she did not know who had gone out from their little world of heroic endeav- ors, but her hand was steady yet, and another report, 18* 210 THE BOY IN BLUE. and another, then a dropping of the last oar, and a moan from the pursuing skiff, with the continuous dip, deep and steady, of Hokey, and they were half way over to the other shore, and beginning to double Moccasin Point. The sentinels on duty about the town, scarce noticed the sound of arms, so frequent were they in this lawless spot. St. Remy had been motionless, because he could not turn without endangering the directness of the fire. He was neither disturbed, nor fearful. He had learned to prefer death to captivity. To be sure, he had anticipated no harm this night, but was looking into the mountains before them, for the danger. He lifted poor Joe carefully, and laid his head into his own blanket. He felt the warm slippery trickle, and knew there was no hope. Revereritly he thanked God for this death, which was far better than life, to the poor lad, better for them all. The first word that broke the stillness in their boat save the voices of the bullets, was Mr. St. Remy's. " Dead ! Poor Joe is gone ! Thank Heaven for lifting his poor bewildered soul where it can see clearly !" There was another long silence, disturbed only by Aurora's sobs. Not that she grieved for Joe, she was glad for his sake, because it was better so, and he had gone by so painless a path but she felt the loss of his unquestioning affection, and so few of the props of life were left to her. Death, snatching even the lowliest, THE BO T IN BL UK 21 1 leaves a loss somewhere. True, she had more courage to meet the future without him, and yet and yet, even the want of any love, however small, makes life poorer. The passing of this night took but one drop from the goblet, but oh it was so nearly drained ! Hours afterward, when they had doubled the point, and reached, just at dawn, the curve in the river farthest north, they approached the shore, and not daring to make a grave, St. Remy cast off his bloody wrappings, upon which Joe's poor bleeding head had lain, and tying it full of stones they fastened it. about the body, and gently dropped him into the stream. It covered him softly, and sung a requiem ! "Another sacrifice, oh God! and another innocent life upon thy list of murders, oh Rebellion ! Spirit of Justice, Remember !" The grey light lay upon St. Remy's face, pale and saintly, as he uttered these solemn sentences, and there was an echoed answer from the shor.e, deep, but positive. They looked into each other's faces, through the fading dimness, and believed they were heard. The calm solemn River flowed on, and, hid the track of the fugitives. Hokey did not suffer the loss of Joe as one would have supposed. He was beginning to loose faith in his people. He thought them unworthy of liberty. He did not know who were Vip's compan- ions in the hunt for Mr. St. Remy, but certainly they were black. Their voices proclaimed their blood. Had 212 THE BO T IN BL UE. Vip dared anything for freedom, he would have for given him all the old wrongs, but the venture for money it was contemptible even in a slave ! He almost hoped that last ball ended Vip's life, then there would be no one to carry back the tidings of the contest, and the escape. They drew their graceful skiff, so laden with the memories of better days, into the woods, and buried it in a hollow with last year's leaves, and left it with last year's hopes. They breakfasted upon the still shore, and started north-westerly. Slowly, for the miles were long be- cause of the beautiful Cumberland hills that were be- tween them, and the Federal lines ; and so high, and the days so warm, and the nights so dangerous in the pathless country. Not that either looked backward. It was a better life than they had lived for many months. Mr. St. Remy was jubilant. His genial self came back in the sunshine, and he threw it over the group. Hokey was weary but hopeful, when he could put aside the consciousness of his color, the degredation it signified, to him this day. He need not have felt that wickedness belonged to his race, if he had deployed his reflections over the southern slopes, and tropical hillsides. There were men with white faces even at the North that spot where he supposed* virtue lived, who bore blacker hearts than he had ever seen look out of African eves. He THE EOT IN BLUE. 213 did not know this yet, or he would have had less cour- age to drag his weak and weary limbs up the moun tains. They dared not take the highways yet, they were so near home Home ! This was a word too full of tears to be spoken, and so they only called it Chattanooga. There were shady resting places, and they were peaceful because even their small outfit was burden- some. Hokey and Mr. Farnam each carried a rifle. Aurora wore her reloaded revolvers in her girdle under her repellant mantle, and each carried a small package. Before midday they were all asleep in the shadow and shelter of the mountains under the great uplifted heads which looked into their Promised Land. The trees swayed over them, and reached out welcoming arms to them, but they heard nothing for the deep rest that was breathed into their hunted lives. Not a fear crept after them. They felt the Invisible leading them, and believed the cloud by day, and pillar by night would guide them. Food they could bring down with their rifles from the air, if they dared risk the answer- ing echoes. Replies might come from unwelcome sources. They had thought of all these things, and prepared supplies of condensed food, small, but capable of keeping life a long time. Hope and excitement held the thought of future requirements in subjection. They traversed but a short distance by every day's hot sun, 214 THE BO 7 IN BL UK and there was no moon to help them by night. The earlier and latter portion of the hours were spent in pushing on, but they became wearisome after the first strangeness wore away. The first three nights were as comfortable as sleep could be in an unsheltered bed, with no pillow, and but scanty covering. The warmth of the season favored present comfort, but added to the danger of future fevers. They had not yet encountered a human face, though dwellings here and there dotted the distance. The noon halts grew longer, and the Sequatchie curling its length between them and Murfreesboro made the distance and weariness seem greater. They would have glowed with pleasure at a sight of its silver beauty, if their hearts had not grown so heavy. Pneumonia gave sharp hints of an intended attack, but they resisted it by fierce willfulness. With such an enemy hunting them, it was hardly safe to attempt ford- ing the stream, even if a sufficiently shallow spot could be found. Miles lay between them, and a bridged crossing, but there were ferries all along the margin. These were only scows, or punts, and were always kept locked to their moorings at night, and whoever roused Charon at this hour must quadruple the fee, before the key would set the ugly craft afloat. They resolved upon a forcible possession, and then voluntary compensation to quiet their scruples. Scruples are very THE BO T IN BL UE. 215 inconvenient under such circumstances. In fact, con- science seemed to have become a luxury they could not afford. This night they ate their small portion of supper and curled down upon the brow of a hill overlooking a ferryman's boat and waited. There was no other habitation within sight, and they resolved to procure the boat, without stir if possible, but felt safe, if compul- sion became necessary. Weakness and weariness produced sleep, even before all the stars had broken into the coming darkness. Night is the African's necromancer. Hokey the good, and true, was a coward when the day was over. He always crept as close as he dare to his white friends in their lonely bivouacs, and sometimes he found his eyes very obstinate, when he wished them closed to the funereal moss that swung its long censers into the dark, and made him remember one of his own color who was once a refugee, and captured. He was a noble fellow, and very valuable. His master would not punish him too much, because it would lessen his worth. The planters in the vincinity contributed to purchase him, and then suspended him by the neck until he was dead. They brought out their gangs of slaves to witness the display. Mr. St. Remy did not send his servants, nor was he invited to the spectacle. It was understood that his tastes did not incline him to cruelty, or severity, even before the strong line of distinction was drawn between 216 THE SOT IN BL UE. himself and his old friends. Hokey was free, and a mor- bid curiosity had led him to the execution. The sight left ten years on his brain, and heart. These great trees had always seemed full of the swinging ghosts of his murdered people, as they looked down through the night, but this evening by the ferry, he drowsed early. After a few hours, Aurora awoke with the dull weary pain which always opened her eyes in the woods, and saw but a step away a group of people about a low fire. Women are said to scream upon all remarkable occasions. That is the way the books record their con- duct, but Aurora was silent. She did not stir. She scarcely breathed with the intensity of curiosity and admiration. The picture was so weird, and the faces so earnest, as the blaze lit their bronze cheeks and glit- tering eyes. They looked out into the darkness toward the river, as if they were about to smother the blaze that warmed their evening meal, and attempt the crossing. Their conversation was low, as if from cus- tom and not from present fear. The Magnolia leaves and the festoons of grey moss, and the scream of the night birds roused into terror by the smoke, and glare of embers, combined to fascinate the gaze of the girl. She saw the whole, but singled no one of them there for special scrutiny, until by an intensity of will, she seemed to stretch her power of comprehension be\ ond the usual laws of hearing. " I do not believe they have crossed this river. The THE BOY IN BL HE. o \ 7 young lady has too much wisdom to risk the effect of wet clothing on such a march. Her father would not permit it. Besides, the colored boy was fearfully sick the last any one knew of him, and fevers are not blotted out of anybody in a fortnight. I tell you, they are somewhere this side the Sequatchie to-night. To-morrow ray furlough is up, and then ! O, I can't relinquish the hope quite yet. It would be too terrible to bear." The horror of Aurora, when she felt almost sure they were pursued, the quick change to a certainty that friends followed them, when even the word friend, asso- ciated with earthly assistance, had almost faded from her thoughts, was too much for her poor worn heart, and with a little stir of grateful sound, she lay back again upon her bed of damp leaves. The bronzed men started, and the rubber coats that withstood the heavy mountain dews, fell back, and three Union soldier's stood up, and grasped their arms. Presently one lifted a lighted brand, and with his fel- lows, followed the rustle. A little apart, lay the dark outline of a woman's dress, and figure. Between this, and themselves lay three men, and as the torch ap- - preached their faces, not too near, there was no recog- nition, because sleep so changes the expression. Then the blaze was held close to the face of the woman. Slowly so as not to startle her by the sudden light, the torch approached. Life, which had for one 19 218 THE BO Y IN BL HE. startled moment left the worn, but still strong heart, came back, and she held her eyelids down till she had given hurried earnest thanks to Heaven for help, then she slowly opened them to meet her friends. "Berny St. Remy, God sent you, when our need was sorest," and she reached up her thin cold hand, and he lifted her from her uncomfortable bed. Neither of the brawny sleepers stirred. The dew was venomous, and the miasma from the old slimy leaves in their hiding places sent up stupifying odors. Berny St. Remy let them sleep on while Aurora sat by the fire, with the stars smiling through the deep green openings above, telling him something of the year's happenings, all could not be told, and then begged to know how they could be in the Confederacy with Union uniforms. " We are here to get tidings of our friends. I have learned nothing of my sister," and his voice quivered as he said the sweet name of the relationship. " She tried to enter the Confederacy a year ago nearly, so I learned by accident, and nothing has since been heard of her. I will not believe she is an angel up there though she was one here. Not a word have I heard of my father these many, many months, and though coun- try is dear to a man, blood will be heard when it throbs to such a love as my father's and mine. I only learned from the most careful gleaning where we personated deserters, in farm houses a few miles out from Chatta- THE BO Y IN BL UE. 219 nooga, that my father left there last autumn. The town was wild with your exodous, and that of your father and Ilokey. Who is the other white man ?" Aurora had been looking among her womanly re- sources for a gentle way of relieving the tension of sor- row that was breaking Berny's heart, but had not yet found just the one. " He is a Union man, who has been living in a hole in Lookout Bluff for some time past, and we brought him here. Who did they tell you escaped ?" " Only yourself, Father, Hokey, and the foolish boy, Joe, were mentioned as missing. Other colored boys are gone, and two of them were free. There is a hor- rible suspicion associated with your escape. My own old boat floated on shore at Moccasin Point with poor Vip lying in the bottom, with a minnie rifle shot through his jaw, and though he may recover, he cannot speak, and report said he would probably never tell the tale fully, unless he was taught to write. I fancy the secret is safe, if curiosity or justice waits for that," and a grim smile drifted over the speaker's face. The eagle gleam was fierce in Berny's eyes during this moment's pause, and Aurora knew his mind wan- dered to some far off spot, where he imagined his lost family were waiting, and longing for him. Then his softer look came back. " We supposed you would take this route to reach the Federal camp, and I believe the angels guided us. OOQ THE BO Y IN BL UK Had you been awake you would have hidden from our approach." " Poor, lost Remy !" said Aurora, endeavoring to bring his thoughts back to himself and family. " The thought of her drives all the human out of my heart. That she has been forced from Northern homes, by secret incendiaries, is all that Mrs Berry, her friend, and protector, can tell me. She is a refugee, and a wanderer, the sweet child, and I My God ! I car not help her I cannot find her in this whirl of demons. Hell has no fires sufficient for the punishment of my country's enemies !" He buried his face in his hands, and sobbed like a heart-broken woman. Aurora let him weep awhile, for it was easing hie poor strained heart. At length she said : " Did you observe no look your memory has kept, in that face nearest us, with the iron grey hair ?" He looked again after stirring the fire to a blaze, and shook his head. " Do you believe in the instinct of blood, or natural affection ?" He seized a brand, and looked eagerly into the pale, sharp face, tossed the torch back into the heap of coals, and buried his own again in his hands. For a few moments, he swayed backward and for- ward in his kneeling posture, and big sobs pulsed up THE }iO Y IN BL UE. 221 from his deep well ot grateful joy, and then slowly died into a profound calm His comrades lifted their glazed caps, and held them before their eyes,' as a man does in a holy spot, with involuntary reverence. The son did not trouble that deep sleeper then, but came back to Aurora for explanation. She only told him that his father's life was unsafe, and turned her face into the darkness when she uttered the shameful truths, and added that Hokey had taken him to the Bluff, and with her family's assistance had furnished food. Nothing more could she say. She did not feel that she had been a spirit of mercy, and the saviour of this precious life. The thought had never shaped itself in this fashion, and yet she blushed for the first time when the truth was to be put in words, and so left the reality unsaid. It was past midnight, and they were to cross the Sequatchie Ferry before light. Aurora roused her party, and broke the pleasant tidings which seemed like romance that friends were at the crossing three Union soldiers, who would see them over the river. They were hardly able to rise, till this electrical news startled their blood, and then with eager questions which she could not answer, they followed her down the steep pathway. The ferry man was half dressed, and with a lantern by his side, unmooring the scow. By the tiny gleam, 19* 222 THE BO T IN BL UE. Aurora saw a revolver in the hand of Berny St. Remy, following every motion of the boatman. The same ray from the lamp darted under his own clearly cut brows, and she beheld something beneath their beetling cliffs of thought, that was strangely at variance with the gentle eyes she remembered in the summer houses at " Cairngorm." It startled her, but it was a pleasant sensation. That look told her that he was unconquera- ble. He would live a victor, or die as did Arnold De Winckelried at Sempach. Sullenly, and silently, the Ferryman pulled them over. When his boat was no longer of use to the fugi- tives, Berny said to the secessionist : " Your service deserves no compensation, but here is payment. Not for bringing myself over, do I owe you anything, except what you would have given me, a rifle bail." His voice was so round and full, and so stern too, that neither his father or Hokey heard Berny in its tones. They walked on through the darkness together, southern courtesy forbidding too close questioning. Berny was by his father's side, and observing his weary motion, he offered his arm, and it was accepted. After a little time the hand was withdrawn because Mr. St. Remy felt a tremulous motion to the young soldier's arm that he supposed meant weariness. " I am strong. Oblige me by leaning upon my arm," the young man said, but the intonations of his voice contradicted the assertion, and did not accord with the TEE BO T IN BL UE. 223 full strong tones at the ferry. The arm was, however, taken again, but the trembling increased. " Have you a son, sir ?" " God knows, but I don't. He was fighting for his country, when I heard of him last. He is a noble lad, and your voice and manner are so like his, just now ! I wonder if you look like him, also. I have observed that voices of similar tone, were almost always shaped to similar expressions of face, if not similar features. I wish it was daylight, I would love to look at a Union soldier." " When the sun comes up, I will show you a young man from Chattanooga, in a Federal suit of glorious true blue. Speak his name my father !" Two of the group loitered, and longed for the morn- ing in the east. It had already a dawning in their souls. Mr. St. Remy did not again withdraw his arm. He comprehended the quiver now, and it was gladness which he had mistaken for weakness. The two advanced soldiers understood foraging. Neither attempted to justify to their own consciences the forcible possession of breakfast. It was taken from the white linen cloth of a small planter, and borne into the mountain in convenient vessels, all of which were paid for, at the just estimate of the procurers. From the quantity captured, the original possessor must have 224 THE BOJ IN BL HE. imagined half a regiment lay under the jutting point in the mountain. Hokey seemed cheered in his expression, but fear- fully exhausted in every motion of his brawny limbs. His huge chest lifted and fell painfully, but he uttered no complaint. When the forward group halted, and the St. Remy party came up, Hokey was roused. He sprang to his feet, and with the old merry African laugh, which rang round the rocks, pulled off his slouch of a hat, to his young master. He always would use the term of possession when speaking of him, and now he had rather be owned than not. Berny took his hand, and said with an earnest grip, and tone : " Hokey you are a man, and my friend now, and as such, I thank you for my father's sake. Hereafter, whatever there is, that brother can do for brother, I will gladly do for you." " Please to don't, oh please to don't. I feels like I would love to die now afore the dream goes. I knows I isn't awake, or the fever has come back, or sumfin." " No, it is only me, Abernethy St. Remy come back, and no fever at all, only ' sumfin ! ' ' "Ise awake now, sure. You'se allus a talkin' like dat are. De kingdom's comin', and bringin' you from de mountain top, or de stars, dat skeered me like mad, when I went to sleep up dar. I seed all de sperrits in 'THE BO Y IN BL UE. 225 Jem hangin' mosses, last night, but I didn't seed you, so I guess yer's live as anybody, cept Joe, and he's shot, and dead, and killed, and den wounded, arter dat. O my ! O my !" Here Hokey's nervous excitement, which caused him to forget his usual respectful address to his superiors, ebbed, and the tears flowed in their stead. A little brandy from his old master's canteen, and by-and-by nourishing food, made him almost himself again. " Ky ! Masser Berny, dis is mighty like Lijah's brokfust, dat de birds brought him. Nebber hear'm tell, if dey bring de gridiron, or fotch em all briled. De ravens be black birds, and I spect dat are's de rea- son we darkies knows how to fix de dinners, but de white birds brings it dis time, sure." On the whole it was a cheerful breakfast party. Because the other soldiers were Unionists, was reason sufficient for a deep interest in them to grow up in the hearts of all. Briscoe was a widow's son, and on his brief visit home at night, he learned that she was asleep upon the side of a green hill, just away from the tramp of the secession soldiery. He knew sorrow had worn away her frail hold upon life, and he was glad her pain was ended, but there was no one to love him any more, and he could not put by the loneliness that was following him back to the Federal field. 226 THE BO Y IX ML UE. Fernando Otto, the comrade, visited Chattanooga, because his family had been driven away, and he had a longing to go back, and look at the old spot, and see if some one, sweet-eyed, and pretty, that he knew, and dreamed about, cared for him still. He risked much to learn how her heart throbbed, and he had come back with a softer look in his eye, and a happiness in his face which he tried to keep back in the presence of Briscoe's grief, and Berny's wretchedness. He knew that while he had been listening to the softest voice he ever heard, Briscoe leaned over a grave on the damp hill side, leaving tears such as fall, thank God ! but once in a life time. There was a long, long tramp for the day after the reunion. The distance, and the heat, to hinder their nearing Murfreesboro in time to be within the limit of their furloughs, and their unwillingness to part on the way, began to occupy their thoughts and give them anxiety. Another night alone, was not much with a certainty of safety at last, but there were Guerrillas flocking along the route. They had seen them skirting the mountain many times. About noon, when they could travel no longer, they seated themselves upon the brow of a small hill, shaded by magnolias, and barri- caded by laurel, through which they could view the road, just a few feet below. There was not a plantation within range of their perch, but twice, groups of Jayhawkers passed. THE BO T IN BL JJE. 227 Berny went higher up for a lookout. He could fol- low the valley with his glass for miles, and nothing alive met his eye, except a small party of plunderers on horse. His determination was quickly formed. There were not more than ten of them on their way. Going be- low, he laid open his scheme hurriedly, and begged Miss Farnam to retire farther within the dusky shadows of the trees. " Not if I can do service. Is a Guerrilla a man ?" " No, Aurora, but you might be harmed." " Give me the revolver you took from me at day- light, and I will not use it, unless I must." She went to a curve over a turn in the road just beyond, and waited. Each soldier was to take the man who corresponded to the position, in which the six men formed, and aim steadily. A sharp ring and flash, and four men fell. The horses leaped forward, and stopped. One fell, and the others, great muscular creatures, halted. The un- harmed riders spurred their animals on, for a quarter of a mile or so, then halted and turned back, coming cau- tiously near the curve in the bridle path, with an appar- ent determination of dashing into the ambuscade, to have revenge. Aurora parted the laurel as she saw the advancing peril, and fired. Another fell, and just behind, stood her father, with his rifle reloaded, and the bewildered 228 THE BO IN BL HE. Rebels were in range. They could not turn, for the way was too narrow. They threw down their useless rifles in token of submisssion, and surrendered to a company of six men and a woman ! O their sullen anger, when they counted their captors, and one a negro ! It was too late. They were captives. The disarm- ed prisoners were marched before their captors to Mur- freesboro, which they reached next day, at nightfall. Berny St. Remy knew that his capture would palliate the offence of remaining beyond his furlough, and it was made a matter of thankful-ness, because he had lessened the number of lawless men. Two of them were crip- pled for life, and five were led to the martial prison. Aurora ministered to the wants of the wounded rebels, and was grateful because she was spared the memory of having taken life, even from so wicked a service. Every kindness that a military post could bestow was given to the escaped Unionists. Aurora and her father performed hospital duty, and Mr. St. Remy entered the army by the side of his son. True chivalry were they soldiers gentlemen and Christians. THE BO T IN L UE. 229 . CHAPTER XIII. WHY REMT ST. KEMT DISAPPEARED. " Wo have a true and tender clasp, For Freedom's friends where'er their home ; And for her foes as grim a grasp, No matter when, or whence they come." WHILE the summer grew glorious with her own beauty, and draped her fields with flowers, deeper hued, because of the purple drops which the lips of mother earth drank out of rich hearts to nourish their growth of loveliness, the red rain continued to fall. Colonel Berry had won laurels and worn them under our own flag at New Orleans. There had been a fierce contest between inclination and duty when he took his regiment to this southern post. He desired a south- western position, but not this. His patriotism was stronger than ever, but he was human enough to be un- happy because he was not in Tennessee. He fancied Remy St. Remy hovered about the border, only just beyond the Rebel lines, and there was a chance of meeting, but then he had promised too many in New England to watch over son, husband, and brother, who went out into the wild warfare under his command. 20 230 1HE SOY IN BL UK He must stay with his own, unless the fate of the field separated them. He was one of those men who hear but one adviser, his own soul and he never dis- obeyed. Strange stories reached him in the winter, just before embarking for the mouth of the Mississippi. A man had died at the village near his home, after a prolonged illness, and left singular confessions in the ears of the gossip loving people. He said he was there at first under heavy pay. He was to drive a southern girl out of the protection of any northern family who might be- friend her. Her name was Remy St. Remy, and his employer was a rebel officer. He was to burn every house that sheltered her, and force her to join her own people. He said he met her once, and she wore the face of his mother's patron saint, the very same that was pictured over the altar, in the little church where he prayed, before he knew what a prison meant. He was fixed with a motionless awe as she approached him in one of those beautiful solitary paths by the sea, because he thought her a spirit come to rebuke him. His face must have told his terror, for she spoke gently to him, and offered aid in her own angelic way, supposing him ill. When his words came, he only thanked her, but that night he vowed, as he hoped for Heaven, to spare the poor girl who had brought the old thoughts back, and spoken so like a forgiving saint to him. The next morning he found her again in the park, and baring his THE 07 IN BLUE. 231 head in her sweet presence, told her the truth. He said she turned white as the lilies she held in her hand, and thanked him. Then she besought him to promise her to follow a better life, and he gave his oath by the blessed virgin to be an honest Christian man, always, and he had kept his word. She offered him money, but he could not take it. He gave his unearned gold to the poor box of the church. A few days after he learned that his angel had gone, and he knew it was because she feared some other mes- senger might make Mrs. Berry homeless. The Colonel writhed under the fancies which haunted him after this time. He feared everything. He knew the villain who persecuted this child-Unionist, and had seen his name in southern prints, coupled with deeds which Rebels called heroic. If she reached Chattanooga what was her fate ? He dared not think of it. If she was within our lines, would her enemy find her, and follow her with villainy ? Sometimes his sleep was haunted by her pale suffering face, and sometimes he saw her an angel, safe and within the peaceful Fields of Eden. He was willing she should be in some sheltered grave, but not a wanderer. He knew her great soul too well to believe she would peril any one by her hunted presence. Her income was easily convertible to any form, and he could not trace her by this, even if he had freedom to follow. He was maddened, tortured almost to frenzy, and yet wore the 232 TOM BO Y IN BL US. calm of a sleeping volcano in the still twilight. The fear that stirred and tortured him, gave as yet, no out- ward sign, but time seemed remorseless, yet it was not. It brought him stern duties in wretched, sinning New Orleans, and he was glad to drown every one of the hydra fancies out of his brain. Among the many crowding changes in that city, some strange things crept into his vocations. He felt the de- lirium of success just a whirl or so, and entered deter- minately upon the innovations which Federal rule brought to the people. His labors were neither few nor easy, and he was grateful for this. Sometimes 1 his ten- derness stood between guilt and justice, but he always tried to crush it down. Sometimes he wore a touch of mercy in the awarding of punishments. He stood firm- ly against depredations upon the sanctity of personal possessions. He was not zealous enough to procure preferment, where riot was mistaken for patriotism, and so here upon the harvest ground of pillage, he was sim- i ply himself, a Christian soldier, with not a trophy to prove that he was one of the captors of this rich city. His surgeon still spoke of him among his brother officers as, " Old Abe's one proof of Christianity," and not a lip smiled at the quaint expression, because it was so true. " He did not stoop till blind, for place and pelf; His whole life burned a sacrifice of self." TEE BOY IN EL UE. 233 One such soldier leads the hearts and lives of many of his fellows, thank Heaven ! There is a wake of light following Colonel Kerry's career, which shall drag itself through the better leaves of our country's history, to touch with fairer tints the blacker truths of to-day. He believed in conquering our enemies, but supposed men were above the habits of locusts, and not made to desolate, after a triumph. 9 " Ah, let the Peacemen preach, but let our Peace Be Right victorious, not triumphant Wrong." Among the Freedmen whose wants he was relieving, one fine fellow mentioned his master in Chattanooga who had sent him south for safety, and the Colonel eagerly asked for the St. Remys, and learned that all the household had fled from the town. This meagre bit of information was to last him for a year ! If the St. Remys were North, his mother would know, and she did not. They were wanderers, he thought, in the wretched confederacy, and if he could only fight his way to them, when New Orleans was crushed in its heart, as it was subjugated externally ! 20* 234 THE BO r IN RL UK CHAPTER XIV. LOVE'S MUSKETRY. " We have dashed together like waves, and rocks ! We have fought tilfour steels grew red! We have met in the shuddering battle shocks, Where none but the freed soul fled! Now side by side in the fields of fate . And shoulder to shoulder are we ; And we know by the grip of our hands in hate, What the strength of our love might be." THE days, and weeks, and months, went by, and the Grand Army of West Tennessee had surged its way through evacuated Corinth, and with loyal blood sprink- ling its pathway here and there, it reached and oc- cupied deserted Memphis above, and the roar of the Gibralter of the Mississippi, below. Vicksburg held months of resistance in its rocky strength. The rain of shot and shell which fell in torrents, and flooded the city with fire, and blood, poured at intervals for months, but the heart of stone would not yield. There was gal- lant resistance within, and persistant fighting without. It was hard for Ringold to turn his back to Chatta- nooga when so near it, and only his growing love for Trissilian, gave him courage to meet the order to face the west with obedience. They4ieard of the dear old THE BO Y IN BL US. 235 Regiment with Colonel Berry, and of its successes, and its sorrows, as parted families do, with sympathy for losses, and rejoicing for their gains. Colonel Berry wrote one letter, brimful of warm friendship to Ringold, and after the boy had read it through, he smiled softly to himself, forgetting that the incisive black eyes of his Colonel were cleaving through his silence. Then he began to shred it into the tiniest bits, and blow the waifs of affection into the soft evening air from his finger tips, all the time with a halo about his face, as if something had come to him which he had lovingly absorbed, and he was sending messages back upon the air. "Ringold." The finger fell, and the paper moats drifted but in a white flood upon the long green grass. There was a sally of every-day expressions, and the voice took on the new changes which it sometimes rung since that twi- light story at Cairo. " Your Honor's servant." " No matter. You are not the same person I addressed a second ago. I have nothing particular to say to this one. That other was charming. I've seen the face before. Perhaps it was in dream-land, but cer- tainly somewhere. I'm in no mood to be respectful to- night, and you are to have a season of catechism. I will begin at the rudiments. What is your name ?" 236 The blood swung its reddest pennant out over the boy's cheeks, but Trissilian's mood was not to be re- sented, or resisted. A battle of wits was to be fought, and the Boy in Blue was unarmed to-night. Colonel Berry's letter had taken away his armor, as well as his parrying blade of dignity. " I was christened in Rebeldom, but joined the enemies of that lovely Christian .people, and my baptismal title has been sequestered, if you please." " But I don't please. At least let me be umpire." " You are not indifferent, therefore unfitted for the posi- tion. . If you claim that you are indifferent, then I shall enlist, and get detailed to other service. I am fearing an order of this sort every day, and then, oh dear ! It will be promulgated soon, you may be sure." " Would you like to be ordered away ?" This ques- tion was put with an eagerness that would have seemed absurd to an observer, the eyes of the speaker were so impatient for a reply. " No that is I would like to stay if I didn't have to say the catechism." Trissilian laughed heartily at the drollery in Ringold's eyes, and voice, and yet he knew that every word was meant for earnest. The mystery of this boy had grown until the colonel's affection was wounded because he had given confidence and received nothing. He was not whimsical, but he fancied so much mystery hung TEE BOY IN BL UE. 237 about the haughty child's life, which he would have shared with him because of his love and faith, if their positions were only reversed. Trissilian began to believe he detested reservation in friendship, as much as he would in love, if he should ever find the one infatuating woman. He had dreamed of her, and thought he knew just what she was like. He sometimes fancied that Ringold, with feminine sur- roundings, dress and accomplishments, was beautiful, affectionate and piquant enough to suit him, but the reticence bah ! Gentlemen say that women keep no secrets, and so they avoid depositing important mysteries in their cus- tody, but the moment she proves her trustworthy capacities, they insist that she is not frank too much lacking in womanly reliance upon man's truth. Rin- gold tortured the colonel. Jealousy in friendship is as frequent as in love, and almost as painful, and unreason- able but who or what mythical personage should re- ceive his ill will? He was cross after he had failed in his attempt to unearth the buried past of his young friend. He thought of some of these things in the silence that followed Ringold's reply, and came to the conclusion that he was not properly paid for all the affection which he gave to the proud boy. " You can choose some one to serve, whom you can 238 THE MOT IN BL UE. trust. I am ready to sacrifice to your happiness. Let me know when you choose to want a passport." Ringold laughed. " Wont you order a squad to remove me ! Really I don't feel like going without compulsion. I'll give you my poor services if you will let me stay" here his voice changed to a minor key, and the tears tric- kled through the tones, but did not come to his solemn eyes " but I can't tell you all that has made my poor life a wreck. It foundered where too many a young heart did, a year and a half ago, and all went down that made its possession valuable. " Recently, hope brightened, but it is dulling to-night. I shall henceforth be an unbeliever in happiness. I did not enter the service for self-preservation, neither to partake in carnage. It was safest for my friends that I should be where I am, but I would gladly have left my my life where so many have scattered theirs. I stay with you if you desire my service, more than my con- fidence, otherwise, good night and good bye." The pathos of these few sentences was keyed from the Uncomplaining suffering of more than a year's endu- rance, and touched the best heart in the world. " Not good bye ! I'm a beast. I don't know what sorrow means and so let my selfish ill nature out upon you like a bull dog upon a bruised bird. Forgive me, Ringold. You saved my life, and tended me through THE BOY IN BLUE. 239 days and nights of temper, like a young saint, and I am quarreling with you, because you don't give me every thing you can remember. Bundle all my indebtedness into a mouthful of invective, and throw it in my face, the next time I hurt you with a word. That will serve me right, only forgive me this time." Ringold gave his hand, but turned away his head, and said nothing. A little while after, Colonel Trissilian heard him singing in his own tent, one of Shubert softest airs in a rich deep contralto, intoning the sentiment with a strange eloquence. " If that young man, was only a woman, I'd be in love with him. He is just fascinating enough to make a man frantic, if it were not for the seraphic in his nature. Too much angel, and too little woman is not the thing. I wonder who, and what the boy is ! He is a young god, I suppose who has lost his throne. I am ashamed of my manner to him, but it grew out of my fondness, though he isn't old enough to understand the thing. I hope wisdom will linger, for his sake, poor boy!" Colonel Trissilian need not have uttered such a hope. Wisdom had not lingered, and it had brought sorrow to keep it company, as it always does. The colonel felt wise, but he was not. He felt older by several years than Eingold, but he was younger at heart by a century. 240 THE -8 Y When the tent fly was tied down for the night, and Jetty's sleep had passed into inharmonous snores, Rin- gold knelt by his cot, and the prayer was longer, and the tears bigger than usual. They were great tropical drops of heated feeling, and then slower, and softer they fell, like a summer rain at twilight, leaving the sun- set tints pure, and the air sweet. So Ringold's face was calm, and the future welcome after the prayer. Slumber came soothingly, and in dreams Ringold forgot that it was almost a year since he separated from Colonel Berry, and this was the first letter. This silence had sometimes given him pain and, sometimes, the remembrance that the Colonel fancied him a lover of Remy St. Remy made the silence perfectly natural, though not quite as magnanimous as his ideal man would have been. He was learning that mankind do not quite reach perfection. Colonel Trissilian taught him this, and surely there was great love between them, quite enough for future separations if they should ever come. The year had waned almost, and not a word of Chat- tanooga, nor had a face crossed his path that had ever looked in his own before. His eyes, and heart ached with the strain after the familiar smiles of dear old friends, but none answered. Except the few new ac- quaintance which he could not wholly put aside, his life was barren of sociality. Colonel Trissilian had scores of friendship, but Ringold would not share them. THE BO I' IN EL UE. 241 There was a group of union people at Memphis, who drew the Colonel away from his quarters almost every evening. Mr. and Mrs. Allaire, and three lovely daughters charmed him ; but Ringold would neither go with Tris- silian to their house nor be presented to them at any place. Trissilian called him a lady hater, and added that he was made to be captivating, and ought to fulfill his mission. He told him he was wasting first class talents, and many other merry things, all of which held a sting in their jollity for the poor fellow who was left alone. Trissilian was captured in this evacuated city, upon his own ground and by an enemy to his peace. Kitty Allaire had the honor of accepting his surrender one winter evening, and the prisoner appeared far from wretched. The girl was as unlike Ringold as any man's wife, or woman's husband always is to his, or her ideal. She was short, plump, rosy, and blue eyed. Her hair was a shower of amber when the gold comb rolled away from its pretty perching place, and let the heavy threads fall. She was neither capricious, nor piquant, but always so good, and tender, and loving, that Trissil- ian invariably found her lips ready for a kiss. She was made of rose leaves and snow, a happy con- trast to his description of Remy St. Remy who was rose leaves and electricity. His views of womanhood changed with his growing affection. In the storm of his 21 242 THE OT IN BLUE. soldier life, it was sweet to find a place of calm. When the clouds threatened, and were very dark, Kitty Allaire was most radiant. He missed nothing from her face, nothing from her voice, nothing from the music of her prattle. Emotion had always been lulled for her, by sweet sounds, and she had ripened under tropical suns, and never been swayed to a whirlwind of grief. She was created to be a bird, blossom, beauty, everything, that made Heaven attractive, and a home, paradise, so he thought. If he wanted a deeper draught of inteleet- ual pleasure, there were books, and men enough to answer his craving. His life had been, and must be full of labor, and this young velvet^eyed, satin-cheeked girl, was to be henceforth his rest. Glowing, and glorious as his pictures of this beauty were, Ringold neither tired of the descriptions, nor con- sented to look in upon the charming home where Kitty Allaire held court with all earthly loveliness. Yes, Colonel Trissilian fancied he had found human perfection in his crusade against the Rebels. He did not imagine that at heart, this Union family were con- federates of variable color, nor how Kitty did truly love and defend him against her family in his absences, pro- vided they were not too long. And then, too, this was the first division of household sentiment, and it swerved farther and farther toward Kitty's wishes, as the Federal successes penetrated farther into the core of the Rebellion. They were one of those varieties of THE BOY IN BL HE. 243 people whose daughters are angels, and whose sons are nobodies. All heart, and no brain was their apparent compound. Energetic when the wind was fair, and de- spondent and idly acquiescent when the sails wanted close reefing, and to be kept under a firm management. Trissilian thought little of this. " Original Unionists" were not common in Memphis, but he suspected nothing and was perfectly happy. Ringold did sometimes feel a trifle human, when the rose tints were intense in Trissilian's poetic delineations of his future with Kitty Allaire. He could not help feeling crowded out, or at least jostled aside by the new friend. What sister, or brother ever felt the one next them in the household, drifting into another haven without pain, even if their own hand, and prayers sent the loved one forth ! It is not easy to become less in the thought even, and certainly not in the affection of a friend. Ringold longed sometimes to go to the young girl who had thrown such a treasure into his friend's life, and say " God bless you," but there were reasons which prevented, that he dare not put aside. The ache of loneliness was sometimes forgotten, when Jetty sat in the closed tent, and sang the old plantation songs, and' they talked over the dear old times, and Ringold pic- 344 THE - 80 * tured a future to the big believing black eyes, looking up at him till he almost believed it himself. Days full of busy hours, and nights slept away, sped till near Christmas, and then ! THE BO Y IN BL UK 345 CHAPTER XV. NOT WHAT HE INTENDED. " And I, I had come back to an empty nest, Which every bird's too wise for." " O PLEASE to dont leave me. 'Pears like I'll up and die if you go for to say I must stay in dis ere ugly place, where cullud people's no count, no more'n rats. Nobody dont care if we is or isn't spectable ; wese niggers, aw goin to eat sumfin, or need a box to wear to the grave yard when wese starved. Mebby like, you won't git back at all. I seed a yaller cat in my sleep, an yaller cats allus means sumfin awful, course they dus. Black folks was made for nuffin only plagues, an tor- ments. Wish I was skinned an bleached. Glad dere aint any black angels. Fire and brimstone aint nuffin to bein a nigger, an starvin in Memphis without nobody to own ye. Please to don't go, I'll die sure's guns, an den you wont have nobody to cry at your funeral, honey. Please to don't, oh Lor' oh Lor' !" The bewailing was terrific. Jetty rolled like a ship in a storm but Eingold knew there would be a calm by- 21* 246 THE BO Y IN BL UE. and bye, and so waited, though with a troubled pitying face, that was eloquent with unexpressed sympathy. The lull came. " Jetty, you are brave to bear, and don't complain when I should think you would. You have been kind to me, and served me when you were free to do as you chose." " Didn't be kind I made many a big lip at you, when you wasn't lookin. I'se an awful sinner, so don't go fur to say I isn't, but I lub you like all possessed, an allus did, if I d us tell a whopper sometimes." " Hush, Jetty. I don't wish to remember anything unpleasant of you, where there is so much that is good to be grateful for. I must go to Chattanooga, or at least far enough to learn something of my family. Gen- eral Sherman's order that no citizen shall go with his expedition against Vicksburg has driven me to this. As long as I could be with the colonel, I was com par i- tively happy, but now I must find some means of Insur- ing from our friends, for whom I fear so much. Some- time I'll tell you something of Colonel Trissilian, and then you'll know why I was so content, and happy with him, but not now. I love him with all my heart, Jetty, and if you hear that he is wounded or ill, take this note to the Provost Marshal, and he will give you a pass to reach him. Don't show it to any one unless necessary, but if anything happens that I don't return, here is an- other parcel for the colonel with Ringold's last and best love. Don't forget my message, Jetty. I shall leave THE EOT IN BLUE. 347 Victory at the last Federal garrison before Chattanooga. You will be cared for here. I have secured you a place at this house, and if you are discreet, no trouble will come to you. Your weeping will make me unhappy, and I cannot wait with you, or I shall go mad, and to take you, would be sure loss to you. You would never see, you know who, in this miserable world. I'll come back. You know there is no hardship too great for me now, after Donnelson, and the march to Corinth. If you go from this place, leave this glove at the Allaire's for Colonel Trissilian, and a message for me, then he'll find you, if you are in the world, Jetty, you know he will. Don't cry anymore. The good God feeds the birds and clothes the lillies of the field Good-bye." " Good bye, honey. De Lor' scare de Rebels away from you, and let de light of his face shine on you all de way. I hope F shan't dream of yaller cats while yer gone." Ringold's lip quivered as he left Jetty, but it was not the terrible agony with which he turned from Trissilian. This parting was the last straw, so the poor Boy in Blue thought, but there were other things to endure but they came like the rain, only a drop at a time. Accidentally nearing the door where he had left Jetty, he had heard that " irrepressible" talking to him- self. " Feeds the birds does he. Well, dis chile don't like bugs, and worms, no more it don't, and I won't take 248 THE BOY IN BLUE. any of that pesky kind o' feedin. 'Pears like de God my mammer Cleopatra telled of, don't live bout in dese parts. I'd like to see him clothe dis ere lily Isn't it a lubly flower, this ere delicate chile 1 I'd like to see de Lor' take charge ob dis nigger's Sunday fixins, guess He'd hab trouble nuff widout looking arter de ebery day toggery. Ky ! Neber mind, my blessed Ringold '11 come back bineby, an it'll be as good as camp meetin and Christmas. De Lor'll bless dat chile, if dere is any Lor' bout here. O dis nigger smell dinner, an I is awful empty !" The Allaire's seemed to regret Leon Trissilian's going, but Kitty kept her sunshine for him till the very last, and saved her regret, if she had any, till he was gotae. Ringold anticipated little regret, from his friend, compared with that which belonged to the parting with the fiancee, but he was touched to tears by the tender ways the colonel had all that busy day before separa- tion. " Ringold, I believe there is some mysterious tie be- tween us. If I believed in transmigration, I should be sure you and I had been something to each other before we came to this military review, which was different from officer and aid. I dreaded leaving Kitty, the sweet child, but she was so summery, and sunny, I didn't feel the sting of parting very much, but to separate from you, is like leaving a portion of myself. Promise ine not to be careless of life or limb, for my sake " THE EOT IN BLUE. 249 "I promise." " To be here upon rny return " " I promise." " To let no one come between your friendship, and mine, to rank higher than I ?" i " I promise." " When you come back, to tell me everything 1 ?" " All I may, that will not make you less happy for the knowledge. Good bye, my more than friend. May you rest in the- palm of the Good Father of us all, ccdonel, while your friend is away from you. I would have enlisted if I could, and gone with you. Sometime I will tell you why I seem strange, and you will be glad I did not yield to your curiosity." Hands were rung, and the parting past, but the ache was beyond words. Trissilian almost doubted if he loved Kitty Allaire, when a boy could leave such a sore need. Loves are so different ! The depth of Ringold's heart, he had never fathomed, and it seemed immeasura- ble. It was like an artesian well. Kitty Allaire's affec- tion was like a river that spreads its silver ripples over white pebbles, and laughs and gurgles, and you can measure its depths with your eyes. Trissilian thought over these things, and was not quite satisfied. He feared that there would sometime be a thirst in his life, that Kitty Allaire would fail to slake, with her shallow currents of emotion. 250 THE BOY IN BLUE. The New Year had fully come when the Boy in Blue left Memphis. It was like turning from home, to leave the only two friends he was sure of possessing. There was little hope in the expedition, but he longed for a cer- tainty. He had been too many months subject to a tor- turing imagination and any reality could be scarce worse. The peril of his purpose had not entered into a fixed place in his thoughts. He had forgotten fear, and life held so little ! He took the river, up as far as OsceoJa, and then crossed to the opposite shore with a Rebel uniform upon his graceful figure, and a form of parole from an unmen- tionable Union officer in the breast of his coat. The night covered his retreat from Federal appearances, but his true heart throbbed out perpetually its great love for the dear old Union, and its quiet happiness. Opposite Osceola there was a family of Loyalists, and with them Ringold left his " true blue," and the entire personal proof of his participation in the struggle for freedom, and the winter dawn saw him crossing the country toward the village of Lexington. Sometimes the highway, and sometimes the wilds of this half populated country was the chosen solitary route. The huge Mississippi dragged its cold muddy tide to- ward Vicksburg in the twilight of that morning, and Ringold looked wistfully at its flow in the deep hush of coming day, but the eager gaze died out in the big hot THE EOT IN BLUE. 251 tears that were tossed with the boy's petulant bro\vn hand, to make pearls for Victory's glossy neck, and then fade into the mist that lay over the dull broken slope. Then the sun laid its yellow level beams over the bridle path, and Ringold grasped at the omen with his quick reactive heart, and chirruped to Victory, and looked no more after the tide. " What a courageous person you are, to be sure, gaz- ing drearily backward ! Everything seems worse than the last. Courage must have evacuated your heart, Ringold, and now for a recapture," and so over the brown rough earth, Victory's hoofs made the music of the return to Chattanooga. Only a forest trail, and the needle of his compass guided the child all that day, for the sunbeams withdrew after the first morning hour had gone by, until the night drowned the path in its blackness, and only silence, and loneliness was left. Victory browsed upon the twigs, and Ringold slept upon the moss. The openings had been waided, with their groups of wretched kennels sur- rounded by cotton brush, which only made the proof of past thrift the sadder to think about, and strange as it would seem to a civilian, Ringold's rest was sweet, and deep, and refreshing. One who has faced a foe at sabre distance with unnumbered odds, would think little of the possibilities of danger during a night's lonely en- campment. The morning only broke the slumberer's quiet, and I 252 THE SOY IN SLUE. the slight cold breakfast from his delicate stock, was soon, over. He avoided the small village of Lexington which he neared toward nightfall of the second day. Only twice had he been interrogated during his ride, and his parole had served him each time. In the long silence after these interviews, the old hatred of subter- fuge would make him very miserable, but there were worse sins in the world just then than his pure heart could imagine. He need not have so sorrowed for this, but the dear old times and thoughts and their sweet ways were wrapping his soul in memory's enfolding. He endeavored to keep south of Murfreesboro lest he should be captured by Union soldiers, and be obliged to pass a hindering scrutiny, and perhaps be suspected of being a spy, and yet there were families not far below this post, who would be likely to know some- thing of the people of Chattanooga, and perhaps save him a longer journey. He was not quite certain of the Federal position, nor just where our outposts were, as changes were so constantly made. The third night he passed under the shelter of a hos- pitable home whose inmates were too human to ask questions. " Only a lad, and alone," was the thought of these people. Ringold approached it because there was a delicacy in its appearance, and a sweetness in its surroundings that drew him Up its shaded avenue, with that myste- THE EOT IN BLUE. 253 rious charm of beauty, and a belief in its inseparableness from courtesy. Ringold could not tell if it were intuition, or the avoidance of Confederate interests, that led him to the conclusion that they were secretly attached to the Northern policy. Certainly, they were tender, and true to the higher laws of Christianity, as he saw and felt through all his perceptions of the beautiful ways of a family narrowed in its resourses, but too grandly good, to forget the old laws of hospitality. Mr. Stuart was a fine specimen of manhood, but the Confederacy had spared him, because he had lost a limb in the breakers after a wreck, years and years ago, and a slight hesitancy in the fall of his right limb, indicated the helps of art, but was not painfully suggestive of perpetual lameness. The lady, who looked the imper- sonation of Christian calm, and loving kindness, seemed a fitting mate for the head of the house. Only two beautiful grandchildren were with them, because the remainder of the household had not re- turned from abroad, and was in Egypt or Holy Land at the last date of letters, almost two years ago. The girl was about eighteen, and a rare face, and figure, she possessed. It was not like any of the beauties we see in pictures, only the form of the features, and the low growth of a wealth of hair reminded you of Clytie. She looked sad and anxious, except when she knew she was 22 254 TL ' E BOY IN BLUE. to meet the scrutiny of her grandfather, or grand- mother, and then she brought a light, and a smile from some place where her hidden sunshine lay, and became a summer to the winter of their waning lives. Ringold saw this, before the first evening went by, and the strongest sympathy sprang up for this charming girl, but he could not express it, except by the involuntary ^ outlook of his earnest eyes. Belle Stuart fejt the sub- tle influence of the young soldier's soul, even through the contradictory appearance of his uniform. Guy Stuart had turned from the fire where the Confederate emblems annoyed his sight, after a few words of courte- sey, and his spirited young face did not dawn upon them again that night. The old people comprehended why. But a few months more, and the minimum age of the conscript would be upon him, and oh the heartbreak there was in this too terrible fact! His sister's eyes followed him with a filmy look, as if her tears had been all spent, and the heavy lids had become too weary for weeping. Then her gaze came back and fell questioningly upon their guest, who had not missed a single change that had flitted over the brow, and lips of this young girl. "Are you a volunteer, or a conscript]" she ven- tured to ask, as their gaze met, and would not separate. It was a question Ringold had not anticipated, and ho could not look into those eager eyes, and tell a false- THE BO Y IN L UK 255 hood, and so he dropped his young head, and was silent for a moment, and then without calculating the possible danger of his reply, said : " Neither, young lady. J am as I am, because fate and not conscription willed it. I should never be a soldier from choice. Only because of duty, parental duty, and affection, am I here to-night." The voice was low, and quivering with emotion. Its minor tones were always marvelous but now they were pitiful. Mrs. Stuart caught the tone, and her womanly per- ception understood the boy's untold story. No matter what it was, there were distress under the beautiful brown cheeks, and sad handsome brow, and she turned to him with a motherly touch upon his black curls, and his swift hand covered, and pressed the thin white palm close to his head. He had been orphaned of a mother's memory even, but he knew, and felt to-night what it all might mean, and the big tears rolled unheeded over the velvety olive of his cheeks, during this wordless blessing. A struggle for self-supremacy, and the old voice asked if he might retire, because the ride had made him weak and weary* Not the room which was kept for travelers who de- pend upon the kindness of those big hearted people among a scattered population, was given him, but a guest's chamber with its dainty appliances of luxury, and comfort. It quite weakened the lad's heroic pur- 256 THE BO T IN BL UE. poses for a moment, to be so vividly reminded of refined life, but the spirit of self-renunciation, and endurance, had not quite gone beyond call. The night and its vivid fancies, and recollections, were passed at length but they were so painfully slow in their w r aning that nearly all the accumulated strength of two years active duty slid away from Ringold's lithe figure, and he could scarcely arrange his garments, and force his feet across his chamber, and down the staircase, to the breakfast room. Mrs. Stuart's sweet womanly eyes saw the change, and forgetting the age that made her feeble, stepped quickly forward, and clasping his arm, forced him gent- ly into an easy chair, and with one sentence asked a question that included in her paternal soul every ail of a young body. " Where is your mother, child ?" "I have none," and the incisive voice entered her heart like a moan of pain. " Poor Boy ! She's better off though, sleeping under the pansies, than lying awake for her children in these terrible days. Try to be glad she does not suffer, my child." " She isn't under the green grass and purple violets, my dear Madam, for her bones are under the surf of a Northern shore, if the years have not worn them away. I sometimes wish I were with her, but then " " No, no, child. The world wants you, or you would THE BOY IN BL UE. 257 not stay. You are worn out now, and need rest, and there is fever, just a throb or two in your hand. You shall remain with us to-day, and to-morrow you can go, if you must. A drop of wine, and a bit of breakfast will bring the brightness back into your dull eyes." Miss Belle, and the grandfather joined them, but Guy Stuart did not come in. He had been sleepless too, the past night, and his room was next Ringold's, and so he had heard low half smothered sobs, and the rest- less turning of the guest through the long hours, and he dared not face him at table, lest he should betray a sym- pathy which would lead the young soldier to suspect his night's restlessness was known. But there was an intense interest awakened in Guy's mind, and he felt sure Ringold wore a false exterior. Simple hearted and generous as were these southern people, the Stuart blood had never flowed along nobler veins, or through more kingly hearts. Guy hated the Confederacy, and almost despised himself, because he dare not proclaim his detestation. His intuitions were always wonderful and positive. He knew that Ringold was not a lover of the new regime, but was held somehow in the servi- tude of the south. While he was thinking of all these mysterious wrongs, Belle's voice reached him, speaking low, and with agitation. " Come in, brother. The soldier is ill, very ill. You must help him to his room. Grandmother fears fever. He was speaking of his mother's loss by wreck, and 22* 258 THE it happens that grandfather was in the same unfor- tunate ship, and the poor fellow was quite overcome, as the old gentleman was telling it all over. I wish he did not so love to relate that terrible story." By the time the breakfast room was reached, Ringold sat up, rigid and resolute, insisting there was nothing required, and begging pardon for the trouble he had given them, when the ashy white flood swept over him again, and Guy, and a servant carried him back to his room. When the tide of life returned, Ringold begged to see Mrs. Stuart alone, just one moment. An hour they were together, and when the dear old lady came forth from her interview, her soft eyes were red with weeping, but she only said in explanation : " Ringold has no mother, and is seeking his home, which he fears has been swept away with all our pros- perity. We will be very kind to him, but I think no physician is required. He does not desire it. He has fallen asleep. Human sympathy is all he requires at present, and we have an abundance for him, through the same suffering. That child possesses a shy beautiful spirit and a fierce destiny has driven him out like a bird in a storm. We will shelter it him her, Ringold for a few days, until he is able to proceed upon his journey." Mrs. Stuart looked embarrassed, and there were three questioning faces turned toward her, but high breeding kept silence, while reticence was evidently desired. THE BOY IN EL UE. 259 Guy Stuart offered his services, as nurse, attendant or companion, and to his amazement his kindness was declined. He desired an interview with Ringold, now that his convictions were confirmed and thought his grandmother very peculiar to deny him what a similar- ity of age, seemed to permit. A low remittent fever followed the restless night, and for months till the summer was close upon them, it held Ringold a prisoner. Mrs. Stuart watched him with the tenderness of a mother, and alternated with an old, and devoted black auntie, in attending upon him. It was a fearful bondage to the poor child, but no words of complaint were syllabled in that chamber of suffer- ing, and waiting. Then the better days of health come back, and Rin- gold felt that he was bound to this household, in per- petual' bonds of gratitude and affection. One quiet spring day, he said to Mrs. Stewart, as he lay trifling with the sunbeams through his thin fingers. " My dear friend, and mother, I have told you all, but there is an affliction hidden away in the heart of this family, that I do not fully understand, and perhaps if you choose to lay it open to me, I can allay its keenness. Do you desire escape from the Confederacy for your grand-son that will prevent suspicion from falling upon the house ?" " How could you guess it, child 1" 260 THE BOY IN BL UE. " By a communion of souls that suffer, I suppose. If he will go with me, with the ostensible purpose of en- listing at Chattanooga, I will see him safe within the Union lines, and he may be called captured, or any story you prefer, may be promulgated. These are days of expedients. I do not say it is right, but life is some- times very sweet. He is too young to serve in the Federal Army, but there are honorable ways of procur- ing support. Will you trust me? You know I am only " the brown hands covered the face of Ringold, and the pantomime completed the sentence. A mingling of pain, and hope, lay in the soft eyes of Mrs. Stuart, as she answered, after a pause. " I believe God sent you, as he sent the angel to Lot's house, in Sodom, and whatever you suggest, we will gladly permit." That night there was a long consultation below, and above, a tugging at the fibres of Ringold's heart which stretched away southward, and clung with a loving ten- sion to the old fastenings. Duty, and generosity triumphed, and the unselfish boy was not only willing, but glad at being able to bear away one more victim from the terror of Secession, by the aid of his Rebel Grey, and the copy of a fictitious parole. A few more days of convalescence gave an opportu- nity for the intention of the family to be understood by TEE BO Y IN BL UE. 261 the surrounding planters, and parting words to be said, find then the best animal in the Stuart stables stood waiting for the tenderest parting, to be past. It is an old story now, because these almost hopeless separations, are so common ! However, this was what they had hoped, and prayed for. The Stuarts knew that they were cousidered lukewarm if not actually sus- pected in the vicinity, and dare not add to the smoth- ered flame that might burst forth, and destroy them. This patriotic step quite won back the old feeling of kindness, and the wave of reaction poured gifts and kmd washes upon the departing hero. Ringold was understood to have been captured while hearing dispatches, and released directly upon a prom- ise to return to his old home till exchanged. Yes, the parting hour was with them and the sacredness even of this holy time was profaned by expedients, and false- hood, for keen eyes were watching, and quick ears listening, but love made the ruse perfect, and the actors separated unsuspected. Old eyes were dimmer, and young hearts sadder and harder after the drama of that winter morning. The early day lost only a brief space, while their faces were toward the southwest, and afterward skirting inhabited spots at a safe distance, they approached Murfreesboro. Th day had wrought an inseparable bond between these two. Guy Stuart, all frankness, and brimming 262 THE BO Y IN BL UE. with home-sickness, poured his grief into a sympathetic bosom, but in the freshness and absorption of his sorrow, he never thought that he received nothing in return, except counsel, hope, and courage, such as elder and stronger souls possess, and impart. He forgot that Ringold was slighter in figure, and younger at times in expression than himself, and for aught he knew, with less years upon his young brave head. But he had seen service, and that made him seem so old ! Then he was a leader in this escape from secession, and that elevated him to a real hero's position. Guy Stuart stood a half head above Bingold, and yet was a child a beautiful boy. Ringold's face was lettered over with a mys- terious hyroglyph of experience, that looked out of every clearly cut feature, and gleamed and gloomed in every expression of his face, when there was a danger to meet with a beloved sharer in the danger. Then there were hours of tenderest, and softest shadows, alternately, with such a light as Raphael encircled about the head of the Madonna d' SanSisto, or Leonardo de Vinci gave the beloved St. John. Ringold had some misgivings in regard to the termination of their adventure, but he did not share them with the companion of his peril. Their plan was to approach the Union lines, unnoticed by the Rebels if possible, and permit themselves to be cap- tured by our pickets, but the Rebel out-posts were closely guarded, and the lines watched with careful scrutiny. THE BOY IN BL HE. 053 The night came down upon them, and they rested until it deepened into profounder stillness, and then crept cautiously toward the town. Not a quiver of fear shook the hand of Guy, or touched the key of his tones all that day of danger and night of suspense, only his face told the story. About midnight they were to cross an open space of a mile, or more, and the white light of a rounded moon upon the smooth meadow defined the black outlines of their horses, and persons, and lent targets for their enemies' fire, but they gave no words to their thoughts, and the slow moments were braved in silence, with the matched speed ot their spirited ani- mals and they reached the shadow in safety, but the ring of rifles, and the following of hoofs told the tale of discovery and pursuit. Neither were armed, as this defenseless condition was a portion of their deception. For the first time, terror crept into the heart of Ringold. Not for himself, but for Guy Stuart. His quick brain served him again, and saved him from utter despair. He determined if the worst should come to them, to assume to have misled his companion, if he could procure silence from the boy. To escape with their worn animals was scarcely possible, but hope dies hard, even if it has grown faint. The spirit of the riders seemed to have possessed the beasts, and they sped through the narrow paths, and 264 THE BO Y IN BL UE. over the deep wild growth of shrubs, oh so long, and so far it seemed ! until the cry of " Halt !" before, anJ not from their pursuers' brought the animals upon their haunches, with the reply : " Surrendered !" from the leader in this almost neck to neck, race for life. The prisoners were led to the captain of the picket, and delivered up. They confessed to being escaped Unionists, and as this was no unusual thing, it scarce created interest sufficient in the weary officers, to give them the shelter of a tent for the night, or care to pre- vent a change of purpose, had such a thought come to them. By morning the weakness and fever of Ringold came back, and he was raving in a delirium, and was carriel to a Hospital in Murfreesboro. Guy was stupified with terror. Not a thought of hi-; own position troubled him, but the dread of his only friend's death, was unendurable, and he, too, lay under physical prostration in the next cot, with his blue eyes strained into an eager asking for hope. The material in both their lives seemed to have ex- hausted itself in that ride for liberty, and only their be- wildered souls were visible at the first glance into their wonderful faces. Medical attention was given them at dawn, and the close scrutiny which Ringold's face, pulse, and peculiar THE BO Y IN BL UE. 2fi,-j expressions received, ended in his removal to a private room, in an old mansion occupied by our sick and wounded. There was a tenderness, and delicacy in the surgeon's manner, that aroused curiosity, for he was one of those brusque, decided men who smother all appearance of softness with external indifference. When this patient was cared for, he came back to Guy, and questioned him of his companion, but learned little. There was nothing of mystery to explain. He suspected something strange in his new friend's history, from Mrs. Stuart's manner, but the intense excitement of his escape, had driven it from his thoughts, and so the surgeon walked away, humming an old childish tune, that his patients had never heard from him before. Backward, and forward the poor man strode, tumb- ling his great shock of hair upon one side, and then upon the other of his huge head with his bony fingers, then he shook his brain as if rejecting an idea, or reproving it for not suggesting a route out of his perplexity. On he waded for a while, and then suddenly stopping his restless fingers with an. Eureka ! sound in their tips, hurried from the room, saying : " That's it, Johnny Rutger, that's it. She'll do the thing perfectly, and save somebody for somebody I don't know who, nor care. The face is very like one up in a Michigan farm-house, and it must be saved, and 23 THE K0 Y IN BL UE - Johnny Rutger, it shall be, or you may resign your surgeon's commission, and take to cobbling soHiers shoes, instead of mending their limbs." TEE BO T IN BL UE. 267 CHAPTER XVI. GATHERING TOGETHER. " But I am tired of storms, and pain, Sweet angel let me in ! And send some strong heart back again, To suffer and to sin." The angel answered stern, and slow "How darest thou be dead, While God seeks dust to make the street, Where happier men may tread?" AURORA FARNAM received an early call from Doctor Rutger, and after a brief, but evidently interesting interview, she assumed the charge of the fever patient iu the little south chamber. An assistant accompanied her, who alternated in the long anxious watches that in- tervened between the occupation of that little south room, and the day when health conquered disease, though the poor body was wasted to but a shadowy outline of a skeleton when that event happened. Aurora had heard her own name called during the delirium, and the names of many who were once her friends. Carryl Farnam's better days and worthier 208 THE BO Y IA J L UE. deeds, were passing through this child's bewildered memory, and then his name was hissed with a detesta- tion that made Aurora's blood creep coldly back to her heart, and she thanked God he was to her, no more a brother. Who lay so helpless and restless upon the white pillow, was a mystery, but she knew that what- ever of tenderness, and care could be bestowed upon a human sufferer aught to be given by herself, and yet she could not tell you why. Fathom the past as deeply and carefully as she would, she could not find the face, nor the voice of her patient. The disconnected utterances of her delirious patient, led her to one and then another of her childhood and girlhood friends, and then turned her fancies adrift again. But the fever ebbed at last, and the long quiet sleep that is the promise of life, passed, and Aurora waited for the unveiling of the mystery. The great dark eyes opened and looked at the strange ones of Doctor Rutger, and then the eyelids fell heavily and sadly. Large tears rounded under the black lashes, and lay in the deep purple hollows beneath. The Doctor passed his own hand across his cheek, and there was a crystal drop left upon the large blue veins. He was an intuitive man. He understood that the want of a familiar face, brought the drops to his patient's eyes and he no longer waved Aurora from the invalid's sight. When the lids once more unclosed, THE T IN BL HE. 269 this glorious girl's palm clasped the cool thin hand of the child, and sent a subtle something of her own vig- orous life trembling though the delicate fibres of the smitten refugee, and in those dark eyes grew a wonder- ing, incredulous, asking gaze. Then the beautiful thin lips moved, and said : " Aurora are you my earthly friend, or am I in the spirit land ?" Then the lids fell again. " I am your friend, and we are with the living, thank Heaven. We have been very eager for this hour, but we must not spend it in talking." " Tell me of my father, and if I am in Chattanooga again." " I do not know your father nor remember you, or I would be glad to answer you, poor child !" " Then you are not Aurora Farnam, and I am dream- ing. This is too sad an awakening. I thought I was at ' Cairngorm.' " The fancy that had sometimes flitted over Aurora's thoughts, and then escaped that had come within the distant range of her acute senses, and then sank away, was vivid and real now, by a conjuring trick of sweet- ness in the voice and lip of the speaker, when she gave the Scotch accent to " Cairngorm." " Eemy St. Remy !" " I am in Heaven. No one knows my name upon 23* 270 THE B0 Y & L UE - earth. Life is over now and perhaps I can find my father, my poor, poor father !" The soldier girl, the " Boy in Blue" sank again into a deep refreshing sleep, believing she was in Heaven, and all the terrible life passed. To be herself a woman again, with no clinging curse clutching at the friends she loved, and who brooded her in their homes like a shelterless bird, was happiness enough for her weakened brain, and so she rested in the first peace of two dreary years, believing she had drifted away from earth and its battle-fields from life and its partings. The morning had not yet deepened into a summer noon, when two soldiers sat by her bed side, impatiently waiting for those beautiful eyes to open and sending up silent thanksgivings that through all the sorrow and doubt, the suffering and waiting, these three beloved, had met at last even though upon the very verge of the hither shore of the Dark River. Eager but tender were the two faces browned by ex- posure, and furrowed with anxiety, which bent over that little cot and its slumbering treasure. " Where has my poor bird been, these long, long months? Once, almost a year since, a message of safety came and nothing since. Two years she must have been a wanderer, Berny, but the angels have guarded her, and brought her to us," and so the glad father cooed, and purred over his darling, not daring to THE BOY IN SLUE. 271 kiss even the poor pale hands, lest life should flutter away at his earthly touch. At mid-day the dark dreamy eyes opened again. "Father, brother, we are all here except Leon. I thought you would leave your brown faces and those garments oh I cannot be glad when you wear those emblems of blood" and her eyes closed again heavily, shutting out these reminders of her soldier life. O Then when the big tears fell upon her cheeks, and a kiss touched her lips, she seemed to be fully awake, and perfectly conscious. " My father and my brother, thank God !" and the glowing look in her eyes, and over her face, told of her intense ecstacy, and the kneeling figures and bowed heads, each touching softly a little white palm, which held all the world's happiness just then, made the place holy with human love. The long stories, and the tears and smiles, they brought, were told, little by little, in the cool dimness of the twilights of those summer days, while that post was garrisoned with Remy's Regiment. The womanly apparel that had been a wonder because of its graceful appropriateness, was brought from its store house in Philadelphia, and the Boy in Blue became again the loveliest girl in Tennessee, but even now, not the happi- est. She did not relate the story of the lost son, and brother, and how a Tender Hand had brought them 272 THE SOY IN BLUE. together. She feared the conflict at Vicksburg might separate them forever, and her father's heart be torn by a second sorrow. She was so thoroughly womanly and tender in her love ! Not once was Carryl Farnam's name mentioned be- tween Remy and Aurora, nor did Remy dare to say that her own hand had placed perpetual darkness be- tween Hobart Ringold and Aurora. Fate had not yet wrought out all she willed for these two, and with the sacredness of silence which belongs to great and deli- cate souled women, neither spoke of the ruin which had wasted the hearts upon which they once leaned with perfect trust. Both spent their days in soothing pain, and giving sis- terly counsel and saintly prayers for those whose hope in this life was gone, and, who only waited for perpet- ual rest. Hokey was not forgotten in these grateful days, and he wept delicious tears of joy at the restoration of his pretty " missy," though perhaps a bright drop or two fell at the memory of Dot, who was down in Memphis, "skeered to death," because Ringold did not return. Plans were being perfected to restore the colored girl from disguise, and heartache, to her womanly appear- ance, and the constant affection of her childhood's sweetheart. It had seemed a whole winter, and spring too, to the lonely creature before even January had gone by, but THE BOY IN BLUE. 273 Dot's patience and prudence were kept alive till another yellow cat invaded the mysterious realm of negro dreamland, and then the whole of her virtues of silence and discretion oozed away in just one minute. She resolved upon some desperate expedient, though what shape the effort was to take, she did not determine. When Colonel Trissilian returned with General Sherman from his unsuccessful attack upon Vicksburg, Dot felt the " Providence of his 'pearing just after the cat," and consequently gave the package into his possession directly, with the last messages of his lost friend. Colonel Trissilian forgot the glitter of golden hair and the twitter of a sweet coaxing voice in his eager- ness to see Jetty, and learn something of his compan- ion. Kitty Allaire was second in his affection now. " I know there ain't any more Ringold in this world, Masser Trissilian, 'course they isn't, cause I had sich a dream, and then its eenamost four weeks, and he said he'd be back if he was alive in two months, but he ain't alive ; they've deaded him sure nuff, cause I feel'it in my poor black bones. But then here's his will, I 'spect, an his best love to you. He said I mus' give it to you if he didn't come back, an not to give it to you if he did, an he didn't, and so I did,