The Crisis — Complete

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER XXIII. OF CLARENCE

  Captain Clarence Colfax, late of the State Dragoons, awoke on Sundaymorning the chief of the many topics of the conversation of a big city.His conduct drew forth enthusiastic praise from the gentlemen and ladieswho had thronged Beauregard and Davis avenues, and honest admirationfrom the party which had broken up the camp. The boy had behaved well.There were many doting parents, like Mr. Catherwood, whose boys hadaccepted the parole, whose praise was a trifle lukewarm, to be sure.But popular opinion, when once aroused, will draw a grunt from the mostgrudging.

  We are not permitted, alas, to go behind these stern walls and discoverhow Captain Colfax passed that eventful Sunday of the Exodus. We knowthat, in his loneliness, he hoped for a visit from his cousin, and tookto pacing his room in the afternoon, when a smarting sense of injusticecrept upon him. Clarence was young. And how was he to guess, as helooked out in astonishment upon the frightened flock of white boatsswimming southward, that his mother and his sweetheart were there?

  On Monday, while the Colonel and many prominent citizens were busyingthemselves about procuring the legal writ which was at once to releaseMr. Colfax, and so cleanse the whole body of Camp Jackson's defendersfrom any, veiled intentions toward the Government, many well knowncarriages drew up before the Carvel House in Locust Street tocongratulate the widow and the Colonel upon the possession of such ason and nephew. There were some who slyly congratulated Virginia, whosemartyrdom it was to sit up with people all the day long. For Mrs. Colfaxkept her room, and admitted only a few of her bosom friends to cry withher. When the last of the callers was gone, Virginia was admitted to heraunt's presence.

  "Aunt Lillian, to-morrow morning Pa and I are going to the Arsenal witha basket for Max. Pa seems to think there is a chance that he may comeback with us. You will go, of course."

  The lady smiled wearily at the proposal, and raised her hands inprotest, the lace on the sleeves of her dressing gown falling away fromher white arms.

  "Go, my dear?" she exclaimed, "when I can't walk to my bureau after thatterrible Sunday. You are crazy, Jinny. No," she added, with conviction,"I never again expect to see him alive. Comyn says they may release him,does he? Is he turning Yankee, too?"

  The girl went away, not in anger or impatience, but in sadness. Broughtup to reverence her elders, she had ignored the shallowness of heraunt's character in happier days. But now Mrs. Colfax's conduct carrieda prophecy with it. Virginia sat down on the landing to ponder on theyears to come,--on the pain they were likely to bring with them fromthis source--Clarence gone to the war; her father gone (for she feltthat he would go in the end), Virginia foresaw the lonely days of trialin company with this vain woman whom accident made her cousin's mother.Ay, and more, fate had made her the mother of the man she was to marry.The girl could scarcely bear the thought--through the hurry and swing ofthe events of two days she had kept it from her mind.

  But now Clarence was to be released. To-morrow he would be coming hometo her joyfully for his reward, and she did not love him. She was boundto face that again and again. She had cheated herself again and againwith other feelings. She had set up intense love of country in theshrine where it did not belong, and it had answered--for a while. Shesaw Clarence in a hero's light--until a fatal intimate knowledge madeher shudder and draw back. And yet her resolution should not be water.She would carry it through.

  Captain Lige's cheery voice roused her from below--and her father'slaugh. And as she went down to them she thanked God that this friend hadbeen spared to him. Never had the Captain's river yarns been better toldthan at the table that evening. Virginia did not see him glance at theColonel when at last he had brought a smile to her face.

  "I'm going to leave Jinny with you, Lige," said Mr. Carvel, presently."Worington has some notion that the Marshal may go to the Arsenalto-night with the writ. I mustn't neglect the boy."

  Virginia stood in front of him. "Won't you let me go?" she pleaded

  The Colonel was taken aback. He stood looking down at her, stroking hisgoatee, and marvelling at the ways of woman.

  "The horses have been out all day, Jinny," he said, "I am going in thecars."

  "I can go in the cars, too."

  The Colonel looked at Captain Lige.

  "There is only a chance that we shall see Clarence," he went on,uneasily.

  "It is better than sitting still," cried Virginia, as she ran away toget the bonnet with the red strings.

  "Lige,--" said the Colonel, as the two stood awaiting her in the hall,"I can't make her out. Can you?"

  The Captain did not answer.

  It was a long journey, in a bumping car with had springs that rattledunceasingly, past the string of provost guards. The Colonel sat in thecorner, with his head bent down over his stick At length, cramped andweary, they got out, and made their way along the Arsenal wall, past thesentries to the entrance. The sergeant brought his rifle to a "port".

  "Commandant's orders, sir. No one admitted," he said.

  "Is Captain Colfax here?" asked Mr. Carver

  "Captain Colfax was taken to Illinois in a skiff, quarter of an hoursince."

  Captain Lige gave vent to a long, low whistle.

  "A skiff!" he exclaimed, "and the river this high! A skiff!"

  Virginia clasped his arm in terror. "Is there danger?"

  Before he could answer came the noise of steps from the direction ofthe river, and a number of people hurried up excitedly. Colonel Carvelrecognized Mr. Worington, the lawyer, and caught him by the sleeve.

  "Anything happened?" he demanded.

  Worington glanced at the sentry, and pulled the Colonel past theentrance and into the street. Virginia and Captain Lige followed.

  "They have started across with him in a light skiff----four men and acaptain. The young fool! We had him rescued."

  "Rescued!"

  "Yes. There were but five in the guard. And a lot of us, who suspectedwhat they were up to, were standing around. When we saw 'em come down,we made a rush and had the guard overpowered But Colfax called out tostand back."

  "Well, sir."

  "Cuss me if I understand him," said Mr. Worington. "He told us todisperse, and that he proposed to remain a prisoner and go where theysent him."

  There was a silence. Then--"Move on please, gentlemen," said the sentry,and they started to walk toward the car line, the lawyer and the Coloneltogether. Virginia put her hand through the Captain's arm. In thedarkness he laid his big one over it.

  "Don't you be frightened, Jinny, at what I said, I reckon they'll fetchup in Illinois all right, if I know Lyon. There, there," said CaptainLige, soothingly. Virginia was crying softly. She had endured more inthe past few days than often falls to the lot of one-and-twenty.

  "There, there, Jinny." He felt like crying himself. He thought of themany, many times he had taken her on his knee and kissed her tears. Hemight do that no more, now. There was the young Captain, a prisoner onthe great black river, who had a better right, Elijah Brent wondered, asthey waited in the silent street for the lonely car, if Clarence lovedher as well as he.

  It was vary late when they reached home, and Virginia went silently upto her room. Colonel Carvel stared grimly after her, then glanced at hisfriend as he turned down the lights. The eyes of the two met, as of old,in true understanding.

  The sun was still slanting over the tops of the houses the next morningwhen Virginia, a ghostly figure, crept down the stairs and withdrewthe lock and bolt on the front door. The street was still, save forthe twittering of birds and the distant rumble of a cart in its earlyrounds. The chill air of the morning made her shiver as she scanned theentry for the newspaper. Dismayed, she turned to the clock in the hall.Its hands were at quarter past five.

  She sat long behind the curtains in her father's little library, thethoughts whirling in her brain as she watched the growing life ofanother day. What would it bring forth? Once she stole softly back tothe entry, self-indulgent and ashamed, to rehearse again the bitter andthe sweet of tha
t scene of the Sunday before. She summoned up the imageof the young man who had stood on these steps in front of the frightenedservants. She seemed to feel again the calm power and earnestness of hisface, to hear again the clear-cut tones of his voice as he advisedher. Then she drew back, frightened, into the sombre library,conscience-stricken that she should have yielded to this temptationthen, when Clarence--She dared not follow the thought, but she saw thelight skiff at the mercy of the angry river and the dark night.

  This had haunted her. If he were spared, she prayed for strength toconsecrate herself to him A book lay on the table, and Virginia tookrefuge in it. And her eyes glancing over the pages, rested on thisverse:--

  "Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands."

  The paper brought no news, nor mentioned the ruse to which Captain Lyonhad resorted to elude the writ by transporting his prisoner to Illinois.Newspapers were not as alert then as now. Colonel Carvel was off earlyto the Arsenal in search of tidings. He would not hear of Virginia'sgoing with him. Captain Lige, with a surer instinct, went to the river.What a morning of suspense! Twice Virginia was summoned to her aunt, andtwice she made excuse. It was the Captain who returned first, and shemet him at the door.

  "Oh, what have you heard?" she cried.

  "He is alive," said the Captain, tremulously, "alive and well, andescaped South."

  She took a step toward him, and swayed. The Captain caught her. For abrief instant he held her in his arms and then he led her to the greatarmchair that was the Colonel's.

  "Lige," she said, "--are you sure that this is not--a kindness?"

  "No, Jinny," he answered quickly, "but things were mighty close. Iwas afraid last night. The river was roarin'. They struck out straightacross, but they drifted and drifted like log-wood. And then she beganto fill, and all five of 'em to bail. Then---then she went down. Thefive soldiers came up on that bit of an island below the Arsenal. Theyhunted all night, but they didn't find Clarence. And they got taken offto the Arsenal this morning."

  "And how do you know?" she faltered.

  "I knew that much this morning," he continued, "and so did your pa. Butthe Andrew Jackson is just in from Memphis, and the Captain tells methat he spoke the Memphis packet off Cape Girardeau, and that Clarencewas aboard. She picked him up by a miracle, after he had just missed around trip through her wheel-house."

  BOOK III.

  Volume 6.