CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DIPPING OF THE RED STARS.
"Will you oblige me at the piano, Miss Seymour?" Judge Livingstoneasked, as they were seated in the parlor at Ingleside after theretirement of Judge Bonham.
With a show of embarrassment Alice consented as the judge escorted herto the instrument.
"Shall I play your favorite?" she asked a little coquettishly.
"Ah no; not mine, but yours, I beg, and please accompany the chords withyour own sweet voice, will you not?"
Alice, thrumming the piano in a perfunctory way, lifted her eyes to herguest as she replied smilingly,
"I have no favorite, sir, indeed I have not. Shall I play yours?"
"Well, yes; you may if you will not laugh at my old-fashioned fancy. Ido not mind telling you that one of my favorites is, 'Then You'llRemember Me.' I suspect that there are selections from Beethoven, Mozartand Chopin that are inexpressibly grand, but for soulful melody there isnothing like the sweet, dear old song."
Alice threw her spirit into the old song, and with eyes glisteningthrough her tears, remarked sadly, "This old melody is very dear to me,very, very dear."
"I should imagine so," replied the judge, "and I know if it couldsyllable its love it would tell you of its passion for you. I think ithas taken possession of your whole heart, Miss Seymour," continued thehigh official with animation.
To this tentative kind of inquiry Alice did not reply, but lookedblushingly into the judge's earnest face and sweetly laughed, like theartless girl she was.
The golden hours were fast slipping away, and the little goldsmith washammering, too, at the tiny arrows.
"I fear I have afflicted you very cruelly, my sweet friend," the judgeobserved after a pause, as he noted that the hour hand of the ivory timepiece upon the mantel had run its circuit eight times in succession. "Idoubt not that I have wearied you by the unreasonable length of myvisit; but like a bound captive, I have been held in thrall with silkenchains for forty-eight hours."
"And have you really enjoyed the time?" she asked, quite artlessly.
"Why, my dear Alice," he now ventured to address her, "I am inlove--enmeshed in the delightful toils of the most beautiful woman inthe wide, wide world. Will you permit me to declare my passion--mylove--for my queen, my beauty? To tell you that I have been captivatedby the only girl that can under all circumstances make me happy? And canyou, my sweet Alice, reciprocate the feeling?"
There was no response from the girl, but her soul was thrilled by anexperience new and exciting, and she buried her face in her hands forthe moment.
Perhaps there is very little to interest a third party in the initialchapters of a love story; there are to be sure the old fancies that areanimated, then its incidents become melodramatic, and then we laugh, andthen possibly forget. As Alice raised her eyes to the portrait justabove the piano, her face radiant as it were with an indescribablebeauty, the enamored judge looked into the lustrous blue eyes and feltthat he read within their azure depths, the passion of a beautifulwoman's love; and with much confusion he observed,
"Perhaps Alice, I have originated a surprise for you; please do not bealarmed if my feelings have overmastered my discretion."
The embarrassed girl essayed quite tactfully to withdraw the attentionof her suitor from the subject he was nervously pressing, and pointingto the portrait of a gentleman wearing the stars of a colonel in theConfederate army, she asked him if he recognized her father in thepainting.
"Do you know," she remarked without awaiting an answer "that I feelinexpressibly sad when I think of our poor boys who wore the gray in thebloody battles of the South?" and a tiny tear quivered in her soft eye.
"I doubt not," replied the judge in sympathy with her feelings, that theretrospection is extremely painful. "I am sure that I have reason todeplore a catastrophe, that over laid our beloved country as with ashroud."
"You were not a soldier in the Union army?" she suggestedinterrogatively.
"And could you respect me if I were?" he asked.
"Oh yes," Alice replied without hesitation, "you have been so true tothe South in the character of judge I can and do honor you, and I amquite sure if you were a Yankee soldier you believed you were performingyour duty."
"My sweet Alice," he exclaimed. "Don't let us have Yankee soldiers inthis beautiful Southern home; you don't know how opprobriously the termYankee sounds to me. I was a Union soldier and fought under the Starsand Stripes, through the bloody battle of Manassas, and can my rebelsweetheart forgive me?" he asked, as he timidly took her soft hand inhis own.
"Assuredly sir," she replied "if you will give me your word upon honor,that you never shot our poor boys in the battle; now did you?" shefeelingly asked as she looked into his face, aglow with the holy passionof love.
"No," he replied emphatically, "but if I had carried a musket instead ofa sword I would have done my duty."
"Do you know sweet Alice that whilst there were frowning clouds upon thehorizon, there were rainbows with bright hues that bridged them over;that whilst there were incidents excitingly tragical, there wereexperiences that provoked laughter in camps and prisons? Let me give youa single illustration that occurs to me just this moment, if you willpardon me, and let me say that I am convinced that it was patriotismthat kept the Confederate soldiers in the army, where they preferred thethick of the battle, and sought death itself as the highest reward ofthe brave. It would illustrate our pride as a nation to put the gallantsoldiers of the South in an attitude of glory equal to our own.
"I was assistant provost marshal at the military prison at Point Lookoutin the years 1863 and 1864, and I recall an amusing character who wasbrought into the prison with a large number of other prisoners who hadbeen captured at Chancellorsville. I think his name was PatrickSullivan, a red-haired freckled faced Irishman, clad in butternuthomespun; and every available square inch of coat, vest, pants and hatwas decorated by military buttons of all kinds and sizes. I asked theprisoner why this superfluity of decorations? and he answered with adrawl as he squinted his left eye;
"Wall mister, I reckin ye haint hearn tell how thrivin the cussedYankees used to be down South twell we un's got to thinnin em outsorter; they come down thar pine blank in gangs, like skeeters in theSavanny mashes, twell weun's run afoul of em like a passel of turkeyschasing hopper grasses in the clover patches; and bless your soul honeythe captain lowed that every dead Yankee would fetch a gold dollar atpay day, arter we had licked old Lincum; and I've got just nineteenhundred and seventy-six ginerals and kurnels and captains and privatesin the rear rank to my credic at settlin day. That thar button up tharin the tip end of my hat was a Major, that was skeddadlin to the rarearter weun's was plumb licked at Bull Run; and that thar button on thetother end of the hat was the fust giniral I kilt at Seben Pines; andbless your soul honey, killing ginerals and majors after that won't nomore than shooting bull-bats down in Georgy; and as to captains andleftenants, I just flung them in with the foot cavalry sorterpomiscuous."
"Sad to say," the judge continued, "the poor fellow died in prison. Weburied him with all his generals and foot cavalry where the Potomacsings its threnody by night and by day."
The narrative with the amusing grimaces of the judge interested Alice,and she laughed until tears came into her eyes. She became serious againhowever, and asked her guest if he really participated in the battle ofManassas.
"Yes indeed," he rejoined, "and my experience in that battle wasinexpressibly sad. I cannot think of Manassas," he resumed, "that I donot recall an incident full of pathos and glory. Without the mechanismof a regular army; with a currency as erratic as the proclamation moneyof the colonists, without experience or discipline, they had thecourage of Spartans; and the proud eminence they assumed in everyengagement made them heroes in the forlorn struggle. There is not asingle instance upon record where the swords or guns of the Southernarmies were tarnished by ignoble flight or inglorious surrender; andwhenever their flag was struck, it was because the elements
ofresistance were exhausted. Sad indeed that the drama should have begunand closed with such heart-rending tragedies. Could I so order anddirect the policy of the government, I would make the glory of ourAmerican arms as imperishable as the Republicanism of our government. Iwould make Gettysburg and Chancellorsville to gleam through the haze ofcenturies like Marathon and Plataea and upon each return of the gloriousanniversaries, I would find a Pericles to proclaim from our AmericanAcropolis the fadeless glory of the men who wore the gray as well as themen who wore the blue."
The impassioned eloquence of the distinguished guest enthused Alice witha strange experience, and in her discriminating judgment she discovereda lover whose exalted spirit of patriotism, whose fervid oratory,challenged her admiration. She could only bow her thanks to her honoredfriend whose role upon the tragic stage must have been highly dramatic.
"I was a lieutenant in the twenty-sixth Pennsylvania cavalry," hecontinued, "and at the head of a squadron rode a dashing youngConfederate officer who, at the time I saw him, was in the act ofcleaving the head of one of our captains with his sabre, when a shotfrom one of our men arrested the sabre in mid air, and he fell mortallywounded from the saddle. I instantly dismounted and raised the youngofficer in my arms who could only say, "Take the ring on my finger tomy darling Al----" and died. I have worn the ring ever since, vainlyprosecuting the search for the true claimant. I presume that the ownerwill never be found. You will observe from its facets and artisticworkmanship that the diamond must be very costly; and if you will takeit into your hand you will read within the circlet your name and mine,"Alice to Arthur"." The girl taking the ring into her hands uttered ascream that pierced the judge's soul, and she fell heavily upon thefloor in a swoon.
"Merciful Father in Heaven," exclaimed the affrighted man in a paroxysmof agony. "What have I done! what have I done!" Clasping the unconsciousgirl to his bosom, he cried loudly for help, and Clarissa ran in greatagitation into the room shrieking out in a delirium of fear.
"Mars jedge has yu dun und sassinated my yung missis in cold blood indis heer great house? If yu has yu'l sho be swung on de gallus. Oh mylands sakes alive! Jerrusulum my king!" and the old negro ranfrantically about the parlor, hither and thither, over turning tablesand chairs and throwing info the face of her young mistress greatclusters of flowers and water and rugs which had the happy effect ofresuscitating the poor girl; and on regaining her senses she lookeddazedly up and saw Clarissa coming with a teapot of boiling water, withwhich the old negro in her transport was about to parboil her youngmistress. She motioned Clarissa away, and as soon as she could controlher voice she said to the judge;
"Oh, how I must have alarmed you sir!"
"Ugh! My King!" interrupted Clarissa in her grave earnestness "Yu knowsyu skeert us jamby to def; yu fokses aint fittin to stay in dis heerparlor by yoselves, ef dem is de shines yu is agwine to cut up; a littlemo und yu mout been dead as a mackrel und den dat dar jedge mout behung on de gallus;" and with this unparliamentary speech the old negro,decidedly out of temper with the situation of persons and things, strodeout of the room muttering to herself as she closed the door, "I aintsatisfied in my mind pine plank whedder Miss Alice had a sho nuff fit,or whedder she drapped down dat dar way jest to be kotched up by thejedge fo she hit de flo. Dese heer white gals is monstrous sateful datday is."
"You don't understand our maid," Alice observed to her guestapologetically as Clarissa walked out of the room. "We have to makeallowances for her." The judge could not speak for a while, forClarissa's oddities had thrown him into a fit of laughter. Afterrecovering himself he said argumentatively. "I think I can see that thecivilization of the South will have lost much of its fragrance when theold negroes are dead. The history of your country has been refreshed bythe charm they have brought to it; and I doubt not that despite theirstrong individuality, their crudities, they will be sadly missed one ofthese days."
"Now that I have survived those ridiculous sensations that quiteoverpowered me," Alice blushingly remarked "will you accompany me for amoment?" And the judge quietly assenting gave Alice his arm not knowingwhither she was leading him. She paused before an exquisite paintingpartially veiled by drapery, and bade him look upon it. The judgeobeying her command, saw upon the wall the faithful portraiture of thehandsome young officer who was slain under his own eye at Manassas; andfrom whose hand he had taken the ring that had thrown Alice into theswoon.
"Ah!" he exclaimed emotionally "It is he, it is he, your lover, Alice,your brave soldier boy who died for his darling, ever so far away."
"You will pardon my tears will you not?" she asked entreatingly, "if Itell you that he was so true, so good, so brave, that I loved him sodearly?"
"Yes, I can freely pardon, since you confide your grief, your love tome. Take the ring Alice," he pleaded so eloquently, "Take it from ArthurLivingstone, who loves you with his whole heart; who has come toIngleside, to your own sweet bower, to your own dear self, to profferhis life, his honor; to relight the candle upon the same altar, uponwhich your brave soldier boy first lighted it, when he proffered to youhis life, his homage, his all. He who returns the ring to you that yougave Arthur Macrae, would take his place in your heart and guard itsportal with his life, until the very stars shall pale their fires in theheavens above. God in Heaven will ratify the compact, and 'neitherpowers, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, norlife, nor death shall separate us from one another.'"
A smile of unutterable joy was the only answer she gave him.
"Now my darling," the judge pleaded passionately, "in the presence ofthe angels and of your own Arthur, let us plight our holy troth to oneanother."
The girl sweetly looking into the radiant face lovingly answered, "AndArthur has promised to give me away at the altar, and to put the ringthat I gave him with my love; this ring upon my finger."
"Thank God," he exclaimed, in an ecstacy of feeling, "the cup of my joyoverflows," and pressing her soft hand to his lips he kissed it over andover again, and looking only as a lover can look into her upturnedface, beaming with happiness, he said, "After all to what can I comparethe love of a true, beautiful woman?"
"May I guess?" she asked still laughing.
"Yes, oh yes," he rejoined.
"To the love of a true, manly man."
The scattered sun rays were coalescing and forming a nimbus of beautyaround every facade and chamber, except one in Ingleside. Upon thisthreshold, shadows were by turns advancing and receding. Theundiplomatic ambassador with his commission of power to slay, withoutbeing outlawed by any judicial tribunal, was inditing his judgment. Itran in the name of Commonwealths and States Universal. ThisPlenipotentiary had been into this mansion before, but he came withoutterrors, without equipages, without liveried slaves. He came softly andsweetly. There were no harsh commands that he uttered, no rattling ofwheels over cobble stones, no exhibition of a despotic will.
"My daughter," he whispered "you are wearied, come with me I will giveyou rest." Will he come with this fascination again?
Here lies an old man broken like a wheel by the force of cataracts andtorrents, that have been increasing their momentum for all these years,as they have heaved and billowed over his poor soul.
Pending the treaty of love in the parlor, old Ned and Clarissa wereholding a whispered conversation in the kitchen.
"Ned," Clarissa asked in alarm, "did dat dar jedge ax yu ary questionabout Miss Alice when he cum in de do?"
"No, not pintedly," Ned answered.
Clarissa hung her head for a moment, and with her old checked apron toher liquid eyes, she continued sobbingly, "Dar is gwine to cum abreaking up in dis heer fambly Ned, sho as yu born. I seed it de fusttime dat furrinner sot his foot in dis heer grate house. Miss Alice aintneber had her hart toched befo, but when he cum, her eyes looked brightlak de stars, und a smile smole all over her beautiful face, und she hasbeen singing love himes ever since, and dat dar jedge when he gets whayMiss Alice is, is jes as happy as a mole in a tater hill."
It was Ned's turn now to dash away a tear from his leaky eyes, and witharms bent over his bowed bosom, and with drooping head and a seesawmotion he said, "Clarsy, I been a studdin erbout dis heer situashun, undef dat dar furriner tices yung missis from dis heer plantashun, in dename ob Gord what is agwine to come ob ole marser?"
"Yu better ax wot is agwine ter cum ob me und yu. Ole marser is agwineaway fust, yu heer my racket. I dun heerd deth er calling him. Olemarser walks rite cranked-sided now, wid dat wheezin in his chiss, undtwixt dese franksized niggers, und dis outlandish konstrucshun, und olemissis dun und gon, ole marser is er pinin lak a dedded gum in de lowground."
"Eggzackly so, eggzackly so," ejaculated Ned, "Wot is agwine ter cum ofme und yu."
"Dares where yu interests me Ned; what is agwine ter cum of me und yusho nuff? Deres ole Joshaway nigh erbout one hundred years ole, ded undgon now, jes lived on de rode trapezing baccards und furrards to de olekommissary, wid his happysack und jimmyjon as emty as my tub dere widnary botom, twell ole mars fotched him back home; und pend pon it, Ned,ef Miss Alice don't make some perwishun fur me und yu, we's agwine tosuck sorrow as sho as yer born."
"Dat's de gospil troof," replied Ned.
"Uncle Ned," came the voice of Alice from the parlor, "Will you pleasebring Judge Livingstone's hat to him?"
"Sartainly, yung missis," quickly the negro replied, and he ran as fastas his stiff joints would permit, and bowing very humbly, placed the hatin the judge's hand.
"And will you not give me a kiss now in the presence of your oldservant?" asked the judge. And the beautiful girl, half yielding,allowed her lover to print one or more upon her rosy lips.
"Adieu my love, until I come again in October to claim my own."
Alice returned to the parlor and threw her soul into the old, old song,the judge's favorite, "Then you'll remember me."
Ned shuffled back to Clarissa with his old bandana to his eyes with theobservation "Taint wuff while to pester yosef er sobbing und er sighingno mo Clarsy, I dun und seed de margige sealed und livered. I heerd thenupshall wows sploding same as er passel of poppercrackers."
"Oh my heavens," screamed Clarissa, as she jerked her old apron to hereyes.
The three blood red stars were now blotted out of the reconstructioncalendar; like the painted dolphins in the circus at Antioch, they hadbeen taken down one by one. The old Colonel had been running flank andflank with the athletes of reconstruction, but within the last stadiumhe had lost, and the old man, like the fire scathed oak, was yieldinghis life after all; dying like a gladiator with his wounds upon hisbreast; dying, yet holding fast to the traditions of his fathers, withno blemish upon their name or his; with no bar sinister upon the familyshield; with no stain upon his sword. Dying a Seymour, a soldier, asouthron of the bluest blood; dying with the prophecy upon his lips,"The old South, by the help of God, shall be crowned with all theblessings of civilization, with the last and highest attainments in themanhood and womanhood of her people," Dying with another prophecy uponhis lips, scarcely audible, "My daughter, you will live to see the oldSouth, now reeling and tottering like a bewildered traveller, come toher own again; like a magnanimous queen, reigning in love andtranquility; her soil yielding its harvest in bounty, and her peopleblessed in basket and store."
The Broken Sword; Or, A Pictorial Page in Reconstruction Page 26