Erema - My Father's Sin, Richard Doddridge Blackmore [read me a book TXT] 📗

could be, I was called down to reason with an applicant who would take no denial. "A rough man, a very rough old man, and in a most terrible state of mind," said the girl who brought the message; "and room he would have, or he would know the reason."

"The reason is not far to seek," I answered, more to myself than her, as I ran down the stairs to discomfit that old man. At the open door, with the hot wind tossing worn white curls and parching shriveled cheeks, now wearily raising his battered hat, stood my dear Uncle Sam, the Sawyer.

"Lor' a massy! young lady, be you altogether daft? In my best of days, never was I lips for kissing. And the bootifulest creatur--Come now, I ain't saved your life, have I now?"

"Yes, fifty times over--fifty thousand times. Uncle Sam, don't you know Erema?"

"My eyes be dashed! And dashed they be, to forget the look of yours, my dearie. Seven days have I marched without thanking the Lord; and hot coals of fire has He poured upon me now, for His mercy endureth forever. To think of you--to think of you--as like my own child as could be--only of more finer breed--here standing in front of me, like this here! There! I never dreamed to do that again, and would scorn a young man at the sight of it."

The Sawyer was too honest to conceal that he was weeping. He simply turned his tanned and weathered face toward the door-post, not to hide his tears, but reconcile his pride by feigning it. I felt that he must be at very low ebb, and all that I had seen of other people's sorrow had no power to assuage me. Inside the door, to keep the hot wind out and hide my eyes from the old man's face, I had some little quiet sobs, until we could both express ourselves.

"It is poor Firm, the poor, poor lad!--oh, what hath happened him? That I should see the day!"

Uncle Sam's deep voice broke into a moan, and he bowed his rough forehead on his arm, and shook. Then I took him by the sleeve and brought him in.

"Not dead--poor Firm, your only one--not dead?" as soon as words would come, I asked, and trembled for the opening of his lips.

"Not dead--not quite; but ten times worse. He hath flown into the face of the Lord, like Saul and his armor-bearer; he hath fallen on his own sword; and the worst of it is that the darned thing won't come out again."

"Firm--the last person in the world to do it! Oh, Uncle Sam, surely they have told you--"

"No lies--no lie at all, my dear. And not only that, but he wanteth now to die--and won't be long first, I reckon. But no time to lose, my dear. The Lord hath sent you to make him happy in his leaving of the world. Can 'e raise a bed and a doctor here? If he would but groan, I could bear it a bit, instead of bleeding inward. And for sartin sure, a' would groan nicely, if only by force of habit, at first sight of a real doctor."

"There are half a dozen here," I said; "or at least close by. He shall have my own bed. But where is he?"

"We have laid 'un in the sand," he answered, simply, "for to dry his perspiration. That weak the poor chap is that he streameth night and day, miss. Never would you know him for our Firm now, any more than me for Sampson Gundry. Ah me! but the Lord is hard on us!"

Slowly and heavily he went his way to fetch poor Firm to the hospital; while, with light feet but a heavy heart, I returned to arouse our managers. Speedily and well were all things done; and in half an hour Finn lay upon my bed, with two of the cleverest surgeons of New York most carefully examining his wasted frame. These whispered and shook their heads, as in such a case was indispensable; and listening eagerly, I heard the senior surgeon say, "No, he could never bear it." The younger man seemed to think otherwise, but to give way to the longer experience. Then dear Uncle Sam, having bought a new hat at the corner of the street, came forward. Knowing too well what excitement is, and how it changes every one, I lifted my hand for him to go back; but he only put his great hot web of fingers into mine, and drew me to him softly, and covered me up with his side. "He heareth nort, nort, nort," he whispered to me; and then spoke aloud:

"Gentlemen and ladies--or ladies and gentlemen, is the more correct form nowadays--have I leave to say a word or two? Then if I have, as your manner to me showeth, and heartily thanking you for that same, my words shall go into an acorn-cup. This lad, laid out at your mercy here, was as fine a young fellow as the West hath ever raised--straight and nimble, and could tell no lie. Family reasons, as you will excoose of, drew him to the arms of rebellion. I may have done, and overdone it myself, in arguing cantrips and convictions, whereof to my knowledge good never came yet. At any rate, off he went anyhow, and the force of nature drew me after him. No matter that to you, I dare say; but it would be, if you was in it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, and no harm can you make out of him. Although he hath fought for the wrong side to our thinking, bravely hath he fought, and made his way to a colonelship, worth five thousand dollars, if ever they pay their wages. Never did I think that he would earn so much, having never owned gifts of machinery; and concerning the handling of the dollars, perhaps, will carry my opinion out. But where was I wandering of a little thing like that?

"It hath pleased the Lord, who doeth all things well, when finally come to look back upon--the Lord hath seen fit to be down on this young man for going agin his grandfather. From Californy--a free State, mind you--he come away to fight for slavery. And how hath he magnified his office? By shooting the biggest man on that side, the almighty foe of the Union, the foremost captain of Midian--the general in whom they trusted. No bullets of ours could touch him; but by his own weapons he hath fallen. And soon as Ephraim Gundry heard it, he did what you see done to him."

Uncle Sam having said his say--which must have cost him dearly--withdrew from the bed where his grandson's body lay shrunken, lax, and grimy. To be sure that it was Firm, I gave one glance--for Firm had always been straight, tall, and large--and then, in a miserable mood, I stole to the Sawyer's side to stand with him. "Am I to blame? Is this my fault? For even this am I to blame?" I whispered; but he did not heed me, and his hands were like hard stone.

After a long, hot, heavy time, while I was laboring vainly, the Sawyer also (through exhaustion of excitement) weary, and afraid to begin again with new bad news, as beaten people expect to do, the younger surgeon came up to him, and said, "Will you authorize it?"

"To cut 'un up? To show your museums what a Western lad is? Never. By the Blue River he shall have a good grave. So help me God, to my own, my man!"

"You misunderstand me. We have more subjects now than we should want for fifty years. War knocks the whole of their value on the head. We have fifty bodies as good as this, and are simply obliged to bury them. What I mean is, shall we pull the blade out?"

"Can he do any thing with that there blade in him? I have heard of a man in Kentucky once--"

"Yes, yes; we know all those stories, Colonel--suit the newspapers, not the journals. This fellow has what must kill him inside; he is worn to a shadow already. If there it is left, die he must, and quick stick; inflammation is set up already. If we extract it, his chance of surviving is scarcely one in a hundred."

"Let him have the one, then, the one in the hundred, like the ninety and nine lost sheep. The Lord can multiply a hundredfold--some threescore, and some an hundredfold. I will speak to Him, gentlemen, while you try the job."


CHAPTER LVII


FEMALE SUFFRAGE

All that could be done by skill and care and love, was done for Firm. Our lady manager and head nurse never left him when she could be spared, and all the other ladies vied in zeal for this young soldier, so that I could scarcely get near him. His grandfather's sad and extraordinary tale was confirmed by a wounded prisoner. Poor Ephraim Gundry's rare power of sight had been fatal perhaps to the cause he fought for, or at least to its greatest captain. Returning from desperate victory, the general, wrapped in the folds of night, and perhaps in the gloom of his own stern thoughts, while it seemed quite impossible that he should be seen, encountered the fire of his own troops; and the order to fire was given by his favorite officer, Colonel Firm Gundry. When the young man learned that he had destroyed, by a lingering death, the chief idol of his heart, he called for a rifle, but all refused him, knowing too well what his purpose was. Then under the trees, without a word or sigh, he set the hilt of his sword upon the earth, and the point to his heart--as well as he could find it. The blade passed through him, and then snapped off--But I can not bear to speak of it.

And now, few people might suppose it, but the substance of which he was made will be clear, when not only his own knowledge of his case but also the purest scientific reasoning established a truth more frankly acknowledged in the New World than in the Old one. It was proved that, with a good constitution, it is safer to receive two wounds than one, even though they may not be at the same time taken. Firm had been shot by the captain of Mexican robbers, as long ago related. He was dreadfully pulled down at the time, and few people could have survived it. But now that stood him in the very best stead, not only as a lesson of patience, but also in the question of cartilage. But not being certain what cartilage is, I can only refer inquirers to the note-book of the hospital, which has been printed.

For us it was enough to know that (shattered as he was and must be) this brave and single-minded warrior struggled for the time successfully with that great enemy of the human race, to whom the human race so largely consign one another and themselves. But some did say, and emphatically Uncle Sam, that Colonel Firm Gundry--for a colonel he was now, not by courtesy, but commission--would never have held up his head to do it, but must have gone on with his ravings for death, if somebody had not arrived in the nick of time, and cried over him--a female somebody from old England.

And, even after that, they say that he never would have cared to be a man again, never would