“Wheugh!” exclaimed the major, “a pretty long march you have had through that speech!”
The good schoolmaster, quite unruffled, proceeded to offer Eliot a time-worn Virgil; and finished by expressing his hopes that “he would imitate Cæsar in maintaining his studies in the camp, and keep the scholar even-handed with the soldier.”
Eliot charmed the old pedagogue, by assuring him that he should be more apt at imitating Cæsar’s studies than his soldiership, and himself bestowed Virgil in his portmanteau.
A good lady now stepped forth, and seeming somewhat scandalized that, as she said, “no serious truth had been spoken at this peculiar season,” she concluded a technical exhortation by giving Eliot a pair of stockings, into which she had wrought St. Paul’s description of the gospel armour. “The Scripture,” she feared, “did not often find its way to the camp; and she thought a passage might be blessed, as a single kernel of wheat, even sowed among tares, sometimes produced its like.”
Eliot thanked her, said “it was impossible to have too much of the best thing in the world; but he hoped she would have less solicitude about him, when he assured her that his mother had found place for a pocket Bible in his portmanteau.”
63A meek-looking creature now stole up to Mrs. Lee, and putting a roll of closely-compressed lint into her hand, said, “tuck it in with his things, Miss Lee. Don’t let it scare you—I trust he will dress other people’s wounds, not his own, with it.—My! that will come natural to him. It’s made from the shirt Mr. Eliot stripped from himself, and tore into bandages for my poor Sam, that time he was scalt. Mr. Eliot was a boy then, but he has the same heart now.”
Mrs. Lee dropped a tear on the lint, as she stowed it away in the closely-packed portmanteau.
“There comes crazy Anny!” exclaimed the children; and a woman appeared at the door, scarcely past middle age, carrying in her hand a pole, on which she had tied thirteen strips of cloth of every colour, and stuck them over with white paper stars. Her face was pale and weatherworn, and her eye sunken, but brilliant with the wild flashing light that marks insanity. The moment her eye fell on Eliot, her imagination was excited—“Glory to the Lord!” she cried—“glory to the Lord! A leader hath come forth from among my people! Go on, Eliot Lee, and we will gird thee about with the prayers of the widow and the blessings of the childless! This is comfort! But you could not comfort me, Eliot Lee, though you spoke like an angel that time you was sent to me with the news the boys was shot. I remember you shed tears, and it seemed to me there was a hissing in here (she put her hand on her head) as they fell. My eyes were dry—I did not shed one tear, though the doctor bid me. I cried them all out when he (she advanced to Eliot, and lowered her voice), the grand officer in the reg’lars, you know, decoyed away my poor Susy, the prettiest and kindest creature that ever went into Westbrook meeting; fair as Bessie Lee, and far more plump and rosy—to be sure Susy was but a servant-girl, but—” she raised her voice to a shriek, “I shall never lay down my head in peace till they are all driven into the salt sea, where my Susy was buried.”
64“We’ll drive them all there,” said Eliot, soothingly, laying his hand on her arm—“every mother’s son of them, Anny—now be quiet, and go home, Anny.”
“Yes, sir—thank you, sir,—yes, sir!” said she, calmed and courtesying again and again—“oh, I forgot, Mr. Eliot!” she drew from her bosom an old rag, in which she had tied some kernels of butternuts—“give my duty to General Washington, and give him these butternut meats—it’s all I have to send him—I did give him my best—they were nice boys, for all—wer’n’t they, Bob and Pete?” And whimpering and trailing her banner after her, the poor bereft creature left the house.
A loud official rap was heard at the door, and immediately recognised as the signal of the minister’s approach. We must claim indulgence while we linger for a moment with this reverend divine, for the race of which he was an honoured member is fast disappearing from our land. Peace be with them! Ill would they have brooked these days of unquestioned equality of rights, of anti-monopolies, of free publishing and freer thinking, of universal suffrage, of steam-engines, railroads, and spinning-jennies,—all indirect contrivances to raze those fortunate eminences, by mounting which little men became great, and lorded it over their fellows: but peace be with them! How should they have known (till it began to tremble under them) that the height on which they stood was an artificial, not a natural elevation. They preached equality in Heaven, but little thought it was the kingdom to come on earth. They were the electric chain, unconscious of the celestial fire they transmitted.
We would give them honour due; and to them belongs the honour of having been the zealous champions of their country’s cause, and of having fought bravely with the weapons of the church militant.
Our good parson Wilson was an Apollo “in little;” being not more than five feet four in height, and perfectly well 65made,—a fact of which he betrayed the consciousness, by the exact adjustment of every article of his apparel, even to his long blue yarn stockings, drawn over the knee, and kept sleek by the well-turned leg, without the aid of garters. On entering Mrs. Lee’s parlour, he gave his three-cornered hat, gold-headed cane, and buck-skin-gloves to little Fanny, who, with the rest of the children, had at his approach slunk into a corner (they need not, for never was there a kinder heart than parson Wilson’s, though somewhat in the position of vitality enclosed in a petrefaction), and then giving a general bow to the company, he went to the glass, took a comb from his waistcoat-pocket, and smoothed his hair to an equatorial line around his forehead; he then crossed the room to Mrs. Lee with some commonplace consolation on his lips; but the face of the mother spoke too eloquently, and he was compelled to turn away, wipe his eyes, and clear his throat, before he could recover his official composure. “Mr. Eliot,” he then began, “though a minister of the gospel of peace, I heartily approve your going forth in the present warfare, for surely it is lawful to defend that which is our own; no man has a right to that for which he did not labour; to cities which he built not; to olive-yards and vineyards which he planted not.”
“I don’t know about olive-yards and vineyards,” interposed the major, “never having seen such things; but I’m thinking we can eat our corn and potatoes without their help that have neither planted nor gathered them.”
The parson gave an acquiescent nod to the major’s emendation of his text, and proceeded:—“I have wished, my young friend, to strengthen you in the righteous cause in which you are taking up arms; and, to that end, besides the prayers which I shall daily offer for you and yours at the throne of divine grace, I have made up a book for you (here he tendered a package, large enough to fill half the portmanteau of our equestrian traveller), consisting of extracts selected 66from three thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven sermons, preached on the Sabbaths throughout my ministry of forty-eight years, besides occasional discourses for peace and war, thanksgivings and fasts, associations and funerals. As you will often be out of reach of preaching privileges, I have provided here a word in season for every occasion, which I trust you may find both teaching and refreshing after a weary day’s service.”
Eliot received the treasure with suitable expressions of gratitude. The good man continued:—“I could not, my friends, do this for another; but you know that, speaking after the manner of men, we look upon this dear youth as the pride and glory of our society.”
“And I’m thinking, reverend sir,” said the major, with that tone of familiarity authorized by age (but stared at by the children), “I’m thinking you’ll not be called on again for a like service; for after Eliot Lee is gone, there’s not another what you can raly call a man in the parish. To begin with yourself, reverend sir; you’ve never been a fighting character, which I take to be, humanly speaking, a necessary part of a man; then there’s myself, minus a leg; and Master Hale here, who—I respect you for all, Master Hale—never was born to be handy with a smarter weapon than a ferule; then comes blind Billy, an
d limping Harris, and, to bring up the rear, Deacon Allen and the doctor.” Here the major chuckled: “They both say they would join the army if ’twas not as it is; but they have been dreadful near-sighted since the war broke out. That’s all of ‘mankind,’ as you may say, that’s left in the bounds of Westbrook. Oh, I forgot Kisel—poor Kisel! Truly, he seems to have been made up of leavings. Kisel would not make a bad soldier either, if it were one crack and done. He is brave at a go-off, but he can’t bear the sight o’ blood; and if he shoots as crooked as he talks, he’d be as like to shoot himself as anybody else. But sometimes the fellow’s 67tongue does hit the mark in a kind of providential manner. By the Lor—Jiminy, I mean!—there he comes, on Granny Larkin’s colt!”
The person in question now halted before Mrs. Lee’s door, mounted on an unbroken, ragged, party-coloured animal, such as is called, in country phrase, “a wishing horse,” evidently equipped for travelling. His bridle was compounded of alternate bits of rope and leather; a sheepskin served him for a saddle, behind which hung on either side a meal-bag, filled with all his worldly substance. His own costume was in keeping; an over-garment, made of an old blanket, a sort of long roundabout, was fastened at the waist with a wampum belt, which, tied in many a fantastical knot, dangled below his knees; his undergarments were a pair of holyday leather breeches, and yarn stockings of deep red; a conical cap, composed of alternate bits of scarlet and blue cloth, covered his head, and was drawn close over his eyebrows.—Nature had reduced his brow to the narrowest precincts; his face was concave; his eyes sparkling, and in incessant motion; his nose thin and sharp; a pale, clean-looking skin, and a mouth with more of the characteristics of the brute than the human animal, complete the portrait of Kisel, who, leaping like a cat from his horse, appeared at the door, screaming out, in a cracked voice, “Ready, Misser Eliot?”
While all were exchanging inquiring glances, and the children whispering, “Hush, Kisel—don’t you see Dr. Wilson?” Eliot, who comprehended the strange apparition at a glance, came forward and said—
“No, Kisel; I am not ready.”
“Well, well—all same—Kisel can wait, and Beauty too—hey!”
“No, no, Kisel,” replied Eliot, kindly taking the lad’s hand, “you must not wait—you must give this up, my good fellow.”
68“Give it up!—Diddle me if I do—no, I told you that all the devils and angels to bargain should not stop me, no—you go, I go—that’s it, hey!”
Here Major Avery, who sat near the door, his mouth wide open with amazement, burst into a hoarse laugh, at which Kisel, his eyes flashing fire, gave him a smart switch with his riding-whip (a willow wand) over the face. The good-humoured man, deeming the poor lad no subject for resentment, passed his hand over his face as if a moscheto had stung him, saying—“Well, now, Kisel, that was not fair, my boy; I was only smiling that such a harlequin-looking thing as you should think of being waiter to Mr. Eliot. He might as well take a bat, or a woodpecker.”
Eliot did not need his poor friend should be placed in this ludicrous aspect to strengthen the decision which he had already expressed to him; and drawing him aside beyond the irritation of the major’s gibes, he said—“It is impossible, Kisel—I cannot consent to your going with me.”
“Can’t, hey! can’t! can’t!”—and for a few moments the poor fellow hung his head, whimpering; then suddenly elevating it, he cried, “Then I go ’out consent—I go, anyhow;” and springing back to the door, he called out—“Miss Lee, hear me—Miss Bessie, you too, and you, parson Wilson, for I speak gospel. When I boy, all boys laugh at me, knock me here, kick there—who took my part?—Misser Eliot, hey! When they tied me to old Roan, Beauty’s mother, head to tail, who licked the whole tote of ’em?—Misser Eliot. I sick, nobody care I live or die—Misser Eliot stay by me all night. When everybody laugh at me, plague me, hate me, I wish me dead, Misser Eliot talk to me, make me feel good, glad, make me warm here.” He laid his hand on his bosom—“He gone, I can’t live!—but I’ll follow him—I’ll be his dog, fetch, carry, lay down at his feet. S’pose he sick, Miss Lee? everybody say I good in sickness—S’pose, Miss Bessie, he lie on the ground, 69bleeding, horses trampling, soldiers flying, hey!—I bind him up, bring water, carry him in my arms—if he die, I die too!”
The picture Kisel rudely sketched struck the imaginations of mother and daughter. They knew his devotion to Eliot, and that in emergencies he had gleams of shrewdness that seemed supernatural. They were too much absorbed in serious emotions to be susceptible of the ludicrous; and both joined in earnestly entreating Eliot not to oppose Kisel’s wishes. Dr. Wilson supported their intercession by remarking, “that it seemed quite providential he should have been able to prepare for such an expedition.” The major took off the edge of this argument by communicating what he had hastily ascertained, that Kisel had bartered away his patrimony for “Granny Larkin’s” wishing horse, yclept Beauty; but he added two suggestions that had much force with Eliot, particularly the last; for if there was a virtue that had supremacy in his well-ordered character, it was humanity. “The lad, Mr. Lee,” he said, “may be of use, after all. It takes a great many sorts of folks to make a world, and so to make up an army. There’s a lack of hands in camp, and his may come in play. Kisel is keen at a sudden call—and besides,” he added, in a lower voice to Eliot, “it’s true what the creatur says, when you are gone he’ll be good for nothing—like a vine when the tree it clung to is removed, withering on the ground. Say you’ll take him, and we’ll rig him out according to Gunter.”
Thus beset, Eliot consented to what half an hour before had appeared to him absurd; and the major bestirring himself, from his own and Mrs. Lee’s stores soon rectified Kisel’s equipment in all important particulars, to suit either honourable character of volunteer soldier or volunteer attendant on Mr. Eliot Lee. This done, nothing remained but the customary devotional service, still performed by the village pastor on all extraordinary occasions. On this, Doctor Wilson’s feelings overpowered his technicalities. His prayer, sublimed 70by the touching language of Scripture, melted the coldest heart, and raised the most dejected. After bestowing their farewell blessing the neighbours withdrew, all treasuring in their hearts some last word of kindness from Eliot Lee, long remembered, and often referred to.
The family were now left to a sacred service more informal, and far more intensely felt. Eliot, locking his mother and sister in his arms, and the little ones gathered around him, with manly faith commended them to God their Father; and receiving their last embraces, sprang on to his horse, conscious of nothing but confused sensations of grief, till having passed far beyond the bounds of Westbrook, he heard his companion lightly singing—“I cries for nobody, and nobody cries for Kisel!”
71CHAPTER VI.
“I do not, brother,
Infer, as if I thought my sister’s state
Secure, without all doubt or controversy;
Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate the event, my nature is,
That I incline to hope rather than fear.”—MILTON.
Eliot Lee to his Mother.
“—Town, 1778.
“I have arrived thus far, my dear mother, on my journey; and, according to my promise, am beginning the correspondence which is to soften our separation.
“My spirits have been heavy. My anxious thoughts lingered with you, brooded over dear Bessie and the little troop, and dwelt on our home affairs.
“I feared Harris would neglect the thrashing, and the wheat might not turn out as well as we hoped; that the major might forget his promise about the husking bee; that the pumpkins might freeze in the loft (pray have them brought down, I forgot it!); that the cows might fail sooner than you expected; that the sheep might torment you. In short, dear mother, the grief of parting seemed to spread its shadows far and wide. If Master Hale could have penetrated my mental processes, he would have deemed his last admonition, to deport myself in thought, 72word, and deed, like a scholar
, a soldier, and a gentleman, quite lost upon me. I was an anxious wretch, and nothing else. Poor Kisel did not serve as a tranquilizer. His light wits were throwing off their fermentation, in whistling, laughing, and soliloquizing: and this, with Beauty’s shambling gait, neither trot, canter, nor pace, but something compounded of all, irritated my nerves. Never were horse and rider better matched. Together, they make a fair centaur; the animal not more than half a horse, and Kisel not more than half a man; there is a ludicrous correspondence between them; neither vicious, but both unbreakable, and full of all manner of tricks.
“Our land at this moment teems with scenes of moral and poetic interest. We made our first stop at the little inn in R—. The landlord’s son was just setting off to join the quota to be sent from that county. The father, a stout old man, was trying to suppress his emotion by bustling about, talking loud, whistling, hemming, and coughing. The mother, her tears dropping like rain, was standing at the fire, feeling over and over again the shirts she was airing for the knapsack. ‘He’s our youngest,’ whispered the old man to me, ‘and mammy is dreadful tender of him, poor boy!’ ‘Not mammy alone,’ thought I, as the old man turned away to brush off his starting tears. The sisters were each putting some love-token, socks, mittens, and nutcakes into the knapsack, which they looked hardy enough to have shouldered, while one poor girl sat with her face buried in her handkerchief, weeping most bitterly. The old man patted her on the neck—‘Come, Letty, cheer up!’ said he; ‘Jo may never have another chance to fight for his country, and marrying can be done any day in the year.’ He turned to me with an explanatory whisper; ‘’Tis tough for all—Jo and Letty are published, and we were to have the wedding thanksgiving evening.’
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