The Way of a Man, Emerson Hough [ebook reader macos .TXT] 📗
- Author: Emerson Hough
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It held various memoranda, certain writings in cipher, others in foreign characters, pieces of drawings, maps and the like, all of which I destroyed. It contained also, in thin foreign notes, a sum large beyond the belief of what an ordinary officer would carry into battle; and this money, for the time, I felt justified in retaining.
Orme was no ordinary officer. He had his own ways, and his own errand. His secret, however great it was—and at different times I have had reason to believe that men high in power on both sides knew how great it was, and how important to be kept a secret—never became fully known. In all likelihood it was not his business actually to join in the fighting ranks. But so at least it happened that his secret went into the unknown with himself. He was lost as utterly as though he were a dark vision passing into a darker and engulfing night. If I learned more than most regarding him, I am not free to speak. He named no heirs beyond myself. I doubt not it was his wish that he should indeed be held as one who long ago had died.
Should Gordon Orme arise from his grave and front me now, I should hardly feel surprise, for mortal conditions scarce seem to give his dimensions. But should I see him now, I should fear him no more than when I saw him last. His page then was closed in my life forever. It was not for me to understand him. It is not for me to judge him.
Within the few days following the battle, the newspapers paused in their warnings and rebukes on the one side, their paeans of victory on the other, and turned to the sober business of printing the long lists of the dead. Then, presently, each section but the more resolved, the North and South again joined issue, and the war went on.
As for myself, I was busy with my work, for now my superiors were good enough to advance me for what they called valor on the field. Before autumn ended I was one of the youngest colonels of volunteers in the Federal Army. Thus it was easy for me to find a brief furlough when we passed near Leesburg on our way to the Blue Ridge Gap, and I then ran down for a look at our little valley.
The women now were taking ranks steadfastly as the men. My mother greeted me, and in spite of all her sorrow, in spite of all the ruin that lay around us there, I think she felt a certain pride. I doubt if she would have suffered me to lay aside my uniform. It hung in our home long after the war was ended, and my Quaker mother, bless her! kept it whole and clean.
There were some business matters to be attended to with our friend Dr. Samuel Bond, who had been charged to handle our estate matters during my absence. He himself, too old and too busy to serve in either army, had remained at home, where certainly he had enough to do before the end of the war, as first one army and then the other swept across Wallingford.
I found Doctor Bond in his little brick office at the top of the hill overlooking the village. It was he who first showed me the Richmond papers with lists of the Confederate dead. Colonel Sheraton's name was among the first I saw. He had been with Cumming's forces, closely opposed to my own position at Bull Run. He himself was instantly killed, and his son Harry, practically at his side, seriously, possibly fatally wounded, was now in hospital at Richmond. Even by this time we were learning the dullness to surprise and shock which war always brings. We had not time to grieve.
I showed Doctor Bond the last writing of Gordon Orme, and put before him the Bank of England notes which I had found on Orme's person, and which, by the terms of his testament, I thought might perhaps belong to me.
"Could I use any of this money with clean conscience?" I asked. "Could it honorably be employed in the discharging of the debt Orme left on my family?"
"A part of that debt you have already caused him to discharge," the old doctor answered, slowly. "You would be doing a wrong if you did not oblige him to discharge the rest."
I counted out and laid on the desk before him the amount of the funds which my father's memoranda showed had been taken from him by Orme that fatal night more than a year ago. The balance of the notes I tossed into the little grate, and with no more ado we burned them there.
We concluded our conference in regard to my business matters. I learned that the coal lands had been redeemed from foreclosure, Colonel Meriwether having advanced the necessary funds; and as this now left our debt running to him, I instructed Doctor Bond to take steps to cancel it immediately, and to have the property partitioned as Colonel Meriwether should determine.
"And now, Jack," said my wire-haired old friend to me at last, "when do you ride to Albemarle? There is something in this slip of paper"—he pointed to Orme's last will and confession—"which a certain person ought to see."
"My duties do not permit me to go and come as I like these days," I answered evasively. But Dr. Samuel Bond was a hard man to evade.
"Jack," said he, fumbling in his dusty desk, "here's something you ought to see. I saved it for you, over there, the morning you threw it into the fireplace."
He spread out on the top of the desk a folded bit of hide. Familiar enough it was to me.
"You saved but half," I said. "The other half is gone!"
He pushed a flake of snuff far up his long nose. "Yes," said he quietly. "I sent it to her some three months ago."
"What did she say?"
"Nothing, you fool. What did you expect?"
"Listen," he went on presently. "Your brain is dull. What say the words of the law? 'This Indenture Witnesseth!' Now what is an 'indenture'? The old Romans and the old English knew. They wrote a contract on parchment, and cut it in two with an indented line, and they gave each party a half. When the court saw that these two halves fitted—as no other portions could—then indeed the indenture witnessed. It was its own proof.
"Now, my son," he concluded savagely, "if you ever dreamed of marrying any other woman, damn me if I wouldn't come into court and make this indenture witness for you both—for her as well as you! Go on away now, and don't bother me any more."
Our forces passed up the valley of Virginia and rolled through the old Rockfish Gap—where once the Knights of the Golden Horn paused and took possession, in the name of King Charles, of all the land thence to the South Sea. We overspread all the Piedmont Valley and passed down to the old town of Charlottesville. It was nearly deserted now. The gay Southern boys who in the past rode there with their negro servants, and set at naught good Thomas Jefferson's intent of simplicity in the narrow little chambers of the old University of Virginia, now were gone with their horses and their servants. To-day you may see their names in bronze on the tablets at the University doors.
I quartered my men about the quiet old place, and myself hunted up an office-room on one of the rambling streets that wandered beneath the trees. I was well toward the finish of my morning's work when I heard the voice of my sentry challenge, and caught an answering word of indignation in a woman's voice. I stepped to the door.
A low, single-seated cart was halted near the curb, and one of its occupants was apparently much angered. I saw heir clutch the long brown rifle barrel which extended out at the rear over the top of the seat. "You git out'n the road, man," repeated she, "or I'll take a shot at you for luck! We done come this fur, and I reckon we c'n go the rest the way."
That could be no one but old Mandy McGovern! For the sake of amusement I should have left her to make her own argument with the guard, had I not in the same glance caught sight of her companion, a trim figure in close fitting corduroy of golden brown, a wide hat of russet straw shading her face, wide gauntlet gloves drawn over her little hands.
Women were not usual within the Army lines. Women such as this were not usual anywhere. It was Ellen!
Her face went rosy red as I hastened to the side of the cart and put down Mandy's arm. She stammered, unable to speak more connectedly than I myself. Mandy could not forget her anger, and insisted that she wanted to see the "boss."
"I am the Colonel in command right here, Aunt Mandy," I said. "Won't I do?"
"You a kunnel?" she retorted. "Looks to me like kunnels is mighty easy made if you'll do. No, we're atter Ginral Meriwether, who's comin' here to be the real boss of all you folks. Say, man, you taken away my man and my boy. Where they at?"
"With me here," I was glad to answer, "safe, and somewhere not far away. The boy is wounded, but his arm is nearly well."
"Ain't got his bellyful o' fightin' yit?"
"No, both he and Auberry seem to be just beginning."
"Humph! Reackon they're happy, then. If a man's gettin' three squares a day and plenty o' fightin', don't see whut more he kin ask."
"Corporal," I called to my sentry, who was now pacing back and forth before the door, hiding his mouth behind his hand, "put this woman under arrest, and hold her until I return. She's looking for privates Auberry and McGovern, G Company, First Virginia Volunteers. Keep her in my office while they're sent for. Bring me my bag from the table."
It was really a pretty fight, that between Mandy and the corporal. The latter was obliged to call out the guard for aid. "Sick 'em, Pete!" cried Mandy, when she found her arms pinioned; and at once there darted out from under the cart a hairy little demon of a dog, mute, mongrelish, pink-eared, which began silent havoc with the corporal's legs.
I looked again at that dog. I was ready to take it in my arms and cry out that it was my friend! It was the little Indian dog that Ellen and I had tamed! Why, then, had she kept it, why had she brought it home with her? I doubt which way the contest would have gone, had not Mandy seen me climb into her vacated seat and take up the reins. "Pete" then stolidly took up his place under the cart.
We turned and drove back up the shady street, Ellen and I. I saw her fingers twisting together in her lap, but as yet she had not spoken. The flush on her cheek was deeper now. She beat her hands together softly, confused, half frightened; but she did not beg me to leave her.
"If you could get away," she began at last, "I would ask you to drive me back home. Aunt Mandy and I are living there together. Kitty Stevenson's visiting me—you'll—you'll want to call on Kitty. My father has been in East Kentucky, but I understand he's ordered here this week. Major Stevenson is with him. We thought we might get word, and so came on through the lines."
"You had no right to do so. The pickets should have stopped you," I said. "At the same time, I am very
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